Nicaraguan evangelicals are fuming about a plot to insert traditional Catholic teaching into the curiculum of the country's public schools.
     The controversy revolves around Humberto Belli, the education minister and the only cabinet member to remain in his post when control of the government passed from President Violeta Chamorro to Arnoldo Aleman earlier this year.
     Belli is a former Marxist turned Opus Dei activist. He's also a close ally of Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Managua. After taking over the education post in 1991, he ordered thousands of Sandinista-era textbooks burned while substituting a revised version of history that celebrated the role of the United States in the region. The new books were paid for by the U.S. government.
     Belli also included in the new texts a variety of traditional Catholic doctrinal statements and pre-Vatican II texts about the Ten Commandments. After evangelicals protested, the controversial texts were removed.
     Belli got in hot water again during the final weeks of last year's election campaign when he distributed to civics classes a booklet on Nicaraguan history that blamed the Sandinistas for all manner of ills. After supporters of presidential candidate Daniel Ortega protested, Chamorro ordered the booklet withdrawn from schools.
     With Aleman now in power, Belli is up to it again.
     On February 3, less than two weeks before schools opened their doors for the new academic year, more than 200 public school directors were called to a meeting in Managua with the regional delegate of the Ministerio de Educacion (MED). The meeting's principal speaker was the Rev. Silvio Fonseca, the vicario episcopal de educacion for the archdiocese of Managua.
     Fonseca showed the school directors a series of new textbooks entitled "Education in Faith." Several of the grade-level books sport pictures of the pope or Cardinal Obando on the cover. Fonseca encouraged the school directors to use the books in their schools and urge parents to purchase them.
     The texts are at times rabidly anti-evangelical. In the book for fourth grade of secondary school, for example, the text blames Protestants for racial tensions in the world. "Where Protestants are the majority, there have almost always been racial struggles," the book claims, arguing that Protestants in the U.S. were responsible for anti-indigenous military campaigns and discrimination against blacks. "This hasn't happened in other countries . . .with a Catholic majority," the text reads.
     The same text warns evangelicals not to mess with the Virgin Mary. "To scorn Mary is an absurdity, something only the devil can incite" the text reads. "Be careful, Protestant brothers. You're playing with fire. If you want to increase your numbers by misleading unprepared Catholics, don't mess with Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our mother. It's something serious for which you'll pay heavily."
     When evangelical leaders got wind of the plan, they called foul. "We've had to start a campaign to respect the constitution," said the Rev. Gustavo Parajon, president of the Consejo de Iglesias Evangelicas (CEPAD), pointing out that the Nicarguan constitution guarantees lay education and promises that the state has no official religion.
     According to Vilma Nunez, director of the Centro Nicaraguense de Derechos Humanos, the Catholic textbooks represent "a violation of everyone's equality before the law." She said the controversy demonstrates how "the Catholic Church receives preferential treatment here." She cites as another example how Obando's Sunday Mass is broadcast for free by the government television channel. She also says Obando "has managed to get all of his chums in high posts in the government."
     Sixto Ulloa, an executive with evangelical Channel 21 in Managua, said the books represent a "strategic alliance" between the government and Catholic leaders. He claimed that Belli has had some of the books ready for two years, and has used them in a few select schools, but has been waiting for the right moment to introduce them in all schools. With the Aleman government now "paying its debt to Obando for his help during the election campaign," according to Ulloa, Belli decided the time was ripe. But evangelicals, Ulloa said, "caught him with his hands in the dough."
     Belli was called before the National Assembly's Committee on Human Rights on February 14, where he denied any wrongdoing. But according to the legislative committee's vice-president, Orlando Mayorga, the group warned the education minister to watch his step. Mayorga, a deputy from the Camino Cristiano political party, said he's closely watching for abuses.
     MED spokesperson Alfredo Marenco claimed the government "hasn't imposed anything. We're not recommending nor obliging schools to do anything. It's up to the parents what they want to have included in their children's education."
     Yet Sebastian Castillo, who as director of human rights work for CEPAD is monitoring the situation closely, complains that leaving the matter to parents isn't the right thing. "You may end up with a conflict between the rights of the majority of the parents to impose part of their children's cirruculum and the constitutional rights of a minority to not have a religion imposed on them," he said.