Ernesto Cardenal Martinez was born in Granada, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, in 1925. After graduating from a Jesuit high school, he studied literature at the National Autonomous University of. I N MARCH 1983 Ernesto Cardenal, then Nicaragua’s minister of culture, found himself on the broiling tarmac at Managua airport, waiting for the pope. John Paul II had no love for the left-wing.

Ernesto Cardenal is a Roman Catholic priest who is also a poet, politician, and revolutionary. Considered by many to be Nicaragua’s second greatest poet after Ruben Dario, he has devoted his life to the service of the poor and the cause of justice in his native land.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan poet and Marxist liberation theology activist whose priestly faculties were long suspended for his assuming a public office, died Sunday. Ernesto Cardenal Martinez was born in Granada, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, in 1925. After graduating from a Jesuit high school, he studied literature at the National Autonomous University of.

Ernesto Cardenal, the Nicaraguan priest-poet that Pope Francis rehabilitated some 35 years after John Paul II suspended him 'a divinis' for refusing to quit his cabinet post in Nicaragua's Sandinista government, died Sunday. He was 95.

'Our beloved poet has begun the process of integrating with the universe, with the greatest intimacy with God,' said his personal assistant, Luz Marina Acosta, the Associated Press reported.

Bosco Centeno, a close friend of Cardenal, told AP that the poet was hospitalized in Nicaragua's capital of Managua a couple of days ago with a heart problem.

Cardenal was banned in 1984 from celebrating Mass and administering the sacraments.

Nicaragua's newly-formed left-wing government under Sandinista guerrilla Daniel Ortega had named him Minister of Culture in 1979. It selected his brother, Jesuit Father Fernando Cardenal, to be Minister of Education.

When John Paul II visited Nicaragua in 1983, he publicly wagged his finger and scolded Ernesto Cardenal as the priest knelt to welcome the pope at Managua airport.

'You must fix your affairs with the Church,' the Polish pope told him sternly.

The photo of the incident became emblematic of the now-sainted pope's crusade against Marxist-inspired politics in Latin America.

John Paul suspended Cardenal 'a divinis' a year after visiting Nicaragua.

According to canon law, 'clerics are forbidden to assume public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power' (Can. 285 § 3).

Cardenal remained Minister of Culture until 1987, when his ministry was closed for economic reasons.

Last year, Cardenal who was dying, received the news of Pope Francis' decision to lift the canonical sanctions 'conscious, relaxed and with a smile'.

The papal nuncio to Nicaragua, Archbishop Waldemar Sommertag had in February 2019 visited the hospital in Managua to inform him of the pope's decision.

Media had then reported that Sommertag, a Polish-born Holy See diplomat, offered to concelebrate Mass with Cardenal. It was the Nicaraguan's first Mass in 35 years.

Cardenal is one of Nicaragua's most prestigious authors. His works have been translated into 20 languages and he has been awarded the Legion of Honor order in the Official Degree of the Government of France.

Uruguay named him the winner of the Mario Benedetti International Prize this past December.

The Iberoamerican Poetry Awards Pablo Neruda (2009) and the Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize (2012) are among the other important awards he has received.

Born into a wealthy family in the colonial city of Granada southeast of the Nicaraguan capital Cardenal, influenced by the Liberation Theology movement, ministered to the poor and oppressed.

He founded a community of peasants, poets and painters in 1966 that came to symbolize artistic opposition to the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. The dictator was overthrown in 1979 by Sandinista rebels.

Ernesto Cardenal Poems

Cardenal had supported that revolution.

After Ortega returned to the presidency in 2007, Cardenal denounced Ortega's increasingly authoritarian hold on power.

Ernesto Cardenal Nicaragua Imagenes

He spoke out in favor of anti-government protests that broke against Ortega's rule. He was also critical of Ortega's first lady and currently vice president.