On the 25th Anniversary of the day leftist forces toppled Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinista's Political Party, requested reconciliation from Catholic authorities, and in response Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo gave a mass for peace and reconciliation at the cathedral of Managua, attended by over 1,000 people. The mass was part of what many see as attempts to reach out to the Catholic Church, after the Sandinista revolution of the 1970s and 1980s waged between leftist guerillas and US-backing Contras, which resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 Nicaraguans between the 1970s and 1980s, until the Sandinistas were beaten by right of center politics in the 1990 election.
