Francis brings in elderly rebel from the cold

POPE FRANCIS has lifted the suspension of a Nicaraguan priest imposed in the 1980s after he refused to give up his position in the country’s leftist revolutionary Government.

Fr Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, right, 81, who ignored numerous instructions from St John Paul II to resign as Foreign Minister in the country’s Sandinista Government, formally petitioned the Pope, saying he wanted to be able to celebrate Mass again “before dying”. In 1985, Rome suspended Fr D’Escoto, a Maryknoll father, and two Sandinista colleagues, Education Minister Fr Fernando Cardenal SJ, and his brother, Culture Minister Fr Ernesto Cardenal.