2 Exiled Priests Welcomed in Managua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Two Roman Catholic priests expelled from Nicaragua for criticizing the Sandinista government returned Saturday night to a jubilant welcome by hundreds of parishioners who shouted “Christianity si, Communism no!”

Church leaders said the homecoming was a first step toward national reconciliation under a Central American peace accord calling for democratic reforms and an end to the war in Nicaragua by Nov. 7.

Father Bismark Carballo, director of the Catholic Radio, and the Father Benito Pitito, an Italian missionary, arrived on a flight from Miami.

“I came to work to achieve understanding among Nicaraguans,” Carballo later told worshipers at a Mass in his parish church. “I am a man of hope, and I hope we can live in peace as one big family.”

Carballo was denied permission to return from a visit to the United States on June 28, 1986, three days after Congress voted in Washington to resume military aid to the U.S.-backed contras. He was accused of “defaming and slandering the revolution.”

Pitito was forced to leave Nicaragua in 1984.

Ortega invited both priests to return last month in what he called a “good faith gesture” to show intent to live up to the five-nation peace accord.