Rev. Miguel d’Escoto stopped saying Mass 23 years ago when the Vatican suspended his priestly functions for refusing to quit Nicaragua’s revolutionary government. But he never stopped preaching.
From university lecterns, slum soup kitchens and diplomatic forums, he has voiced moral wrath over the plight of the poor and the might of wealthy nations, particularly the United States.
Tuesday, he is being promoted to a far bigger pulpit: the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly.
Thanks to election rules that gave U.S. diplomats limited means to block him, the man guiding the 192-nation assembly’s debates and resolutions for the coming year will be a sharp-tongued cleric who once called President Ronald Reagan a “butcher,” President George W. Bush a liar — and both men threats to international security.
But since his election in June, the 75-year-old priest has taken oblique swipes at U.S. policy while promising not to use his new position to bash it head-on.
Without naming culprits, he railed in his acceptance speech against “acts of aggression, such as those occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan.” But the same speech warned UN member states against “futile recriminations.”
“Look, the world is in a very lamentable state,” d’Escoto said in an interview last week. He cited global food shortages, climate change, human-rights abuses and weapons purchases that drain resources from efforts to fight poverty.
“Things have to change,” he said. “If we are going to move in a different direction, it’s absolutely important that we not go with an attitude that others are to blame. We must work together.”
Asked how that squared with his recent jabs at Washington, he replied: “Reconciliation is not compatible with killing my brother. It means forget past misgivings, but from now on it stops, that behavior.”
The Roman Catholic priest espouses liberation theology and the non-violent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. He plans to keep a bust of the Indian leader on the podium of the General Assembly hall.
But his beliefs, which embrace the right to armed self-defense, were also shaped by Cold War polarization and bloodshed in his Central American country.
He remains a partisan figure today, critical of the United States as it spars with Russia and the leftist rulers of Bolivia and Venezuela. Since Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega returned to the presidency in 2006 and made d’Escoto an adviser, Nicaragua has aligned itself with all three foes of the Bush administration.
Despite that, d’Escoto’s ride to the General Assembly post was smooth. The job rotates by region.
UN diplomats from Latin America and the Caribbean said d’Escoto’s candidacy aroused concern in the region but no serious opposition.
Diplomats from several countries said the U.S. delegation spoke to them about running against Nicaragua. But they said no one wanted a repeat of the drawn-out ideological battle of 2006 when Washington’s lobbying split the region and blocked Venezuela’s bid to join the 15-member Security Council.
In the end, the United States joined in the General Assembly’s unanimous vote to elect the Nicaraguan.
D’Escoto quipped that he was allowed to win because no one thought an elderly priest could do much harm.
“Maybe it helped that I’m so decrepit,” he said.
– – –
More Top Picks Best Weighted Blankets
Sandinista envoy
U.S. connection: Miguel d’Escoto was born in Los Angeles. He moved with his parents to their native Nicaragua at age 3.
Seminary student: D’Escoto returned to the U.S. for Maryknoll Brothers seminary training and higher education.
Politics: In 1975, d’Escoto joined a U.S.-based committee of solidarity with Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front. After taking power in 1979, the Sandinistas made him foreign minister, a job he held until they lost 1990 elections.