UNITED NATIONS — Father Miguel d'Escoto stopped saying Mass 23 years ago when the Vatican suspended his priestly functions for refusing to quit Nicaragua's revolutionary government. But he never stopped preaching.
From university lecterns, slum soup kitchens and diplomatic forums, he has voiced moral wrath over the plight of the poor and the might of wealthy nations, particularly the United States.
Today he is being promoted to a far bigger pulpit: the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly.
Thanks to quirky election rules that gave U.S. diplomats limited means to block him, the man guiding the 192-nation assembly's debates and resolutions for the coming year will be a sharp-tongued cleric who once called Ronald Reagan a "butcher," President Bush a liar and both men threats to international security.
But his sermons these days convey a mixed message. After decades of rhetorical combat, the 75-year-old priest is trying to adjust to a more diplomatic role.
Since his election in June, he has taken oblique swipes at American policy while promising not to use his new position to bash it head-on.
Without naming culprits, he railed in his acceptance speech against "acts of aggression, such as those occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan." But the same speech warned U.N. member states against "futile recriminations."
"Look, the world is in a very lamentable state," D'Escoto said in an interview last week. He cited global food shortages, climate change, human rights abuses, and weapons purchases that drain resources from efforts to fight poverty.
"Things have to change," he said. "If we are going to move in a different direction, it's absolutely important that we not go with an attitude that others are to blame. We must work together."
Asked how that squared with his recent jabs at Washington, he replied: "Reconciliation is not compatible with killing my brother. It means forget past misgivings, but from now on it stops, that behavior. Aggression is the worst imaginable act of terrorism. Do you know how many people have died in Iraq because of the aggression and occupation since 9/11?"
D'Escoto is a short, rotund man with a cherubic face, a hearing aid and a benevolent, self-deprecating demeanor that belies his harshest words and puts listeners at ease. "You'd say you are in the presence of a spiritual leader," said a Latin American envoy who has met with him several times.
