media accused the Catholic Church of being reactionary and supporting the Contras. According to former President Ortega, "The conflict with the church was strong, and it costs us, but I don't think it was our fault. ... There were so many people being wounded every day, so many people dying, and it was hard for us to understand the position of the church hierarchy in refusing to condemn the contras." The hierarchy-state tensions were brought to the fore with Pope John Paul II 1983 visit to Nicaragua. Hostility to the Catholic Church became so great that at one point, FSLN militants shouted down Pope John Paul II as he tried to say Mass. Therefore, while the activities of the Catholic church contributed to the success of the Sandinista revolution, the hierarchy's opposition was a major factor in the downfall of the revolutionary government. On August 23, 2020, Bishop Silvio Báez, who had been outside of Nicaragua for reasons of security since April 23, 2019, accused President Ortega of being a dictator. The Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, Cenidh) said that the Catholic Church had been the victim of 24 attacks since April 2018, including a fire that began in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a sacred image of the Blood of Christ on July 31, 2020. Human rights violations by the Sandinistas Time magazine in 1983 published reports of human rights violations in an article which stated that "According to Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights, the regime detains several hundred people a month; about half of them are eventually released, but the rest simply disappear." Time also interviewed a former deputy chief of Nicaraguan military counterintelligence, who stated that he had fled Nicaragua after being ordered to kill 800 Miskito prisoners and make it look like they had died in combat. Another article described Sandinista neighbourhood "Defense Committees", modeled on similar Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which according to critics were used to unleash mobs on anyone who was labeled a counterrevolutionary. Nicaragua's only opposition newspaper, La Prensa, was subject to strict censorship. The newspaper's editors were forbidden to print anything negative about the Sandinistas either at home or abroad. Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights reported 2,000 murders in the first six months and 3,000 disappearances in the first few years. It has since documented