MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — On a recent Sunday, Managua’s auxiliary Roman Catholic Bishop Silvio Baez talked to those gathered for Mass about love and its many forms.

It soon became clear that Baez wasn’t speaking just to the 300 people sitting on plastic chairs in the sweltering heat, but also to President Daniel Ortega.

Dozens of young protesters had been killed in several days of clashes with police and the president’s supporters, during protests set off by proposed social security cuts but that then veered into calls for Ortega to step aside after a decade in power.

“To denounce and publicly demonstrate against the actions, historic processes, political decisions that go against the great majority is also to love,” Baez said. And he added, if one’s presence is causing instability “to relinquish, to leave can be an act of love.”

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