ReSponses to the attack suffered in Diriamba, Nicaragua, yesterday, by card. Leopoldo Brenes, archbishop of Managua, by his assistant, mgr. José Silvio Báez (who was wounded in an arm) and by the apostolic nuncio, mgr. Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag, in the church of St Sebastian, where some devotees had been besieged, are multiplying. A gesture that coincides with the escalating violence of the last two days, after the words of president Daniel Ortega who last Saturday ruled out any option to have early election in 2019, thus dispelling the weak chance of dialogue that the bishops had been working at. Ortega himself had asked the bishops to act as mediators and witnesses of A Dialogue of peace. After the attack, when it was night in Italy, card. Leopoldo Brenes posted a statement on the Facebook page of the archdiocese of Managua: “Never before had such a situation been seen in Nicaragua. It’s very sad”. Then: “We had not gone to do anything violent, we had gone to the parishes to comfort our priests, to help them in their sufferings, and, despite this, we have been attacked and we have endured all this in the name of Christ. We feel weak before such attack, but the Lord’s Word says ‘My strength is sufficient for you, my grace is sufficient for you’”. “The Catholic Church will go on, it’s not scared”, stated mgr. José Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua. Messages of sympathy were sent to the Nicaraguan Church by many parties, especially by the Bishops Conferences of Costa Rica and Panama.