By Gretchen Keiser

Sister Peggy Healy, a Maryknoll member working in the Central American country of Nicaragua, says the Catholic Church "has to be a critical force in the revolution" of that nation.

In an interview in Atlanta on April 28, she said the Church must be both critical of itself "and of the government, if it does not meet social justice needs."

Sister Healy was in Atlanta as part of a trip to the United States sponsored by OxFam America, an organization devoted to ending world hunger.

A nurse-practitioner in the barrios of Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, from 1974-78, she left the country for several years to study in the United States and to work for the Washington Office on Latin America as a policy analyst and advocate. She returned to Nicaragua in 1981 as a representative of Maryknoll in Central America.

Within the country, the Church is divided over the policies of the Sandinista government which came into power after the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Four priests hold government posts -- including the foreign minister, Miguel D'Escoto, MM. However, members of the Church hierarchy in Nicaragua have been critical both of priests holding government posts, and of specific policies enacted by the revolutionary government.

Despite the criticism that has emerged, both Sister Healy and Eligio Rocha, a 30-year-old Nicaraguan farmer who works as a lay catechist in a rural area near the Honduran border, said that they had not experienced any disruption of their work or of religious services under the government. "On a barrio level, our sisters have been able to continue their work and in terms of religious practices, I have never been restricted," Sister Healy said.

Rocha, who is a "delegate of the Word," teaching catechism and training other catechists in Chinandega Province, spoke of persecution of Christians under the Somoza government. He said that his region has benefited from land reform since the revolution, which has placed some arable land in the hands of the peasants, and has been one of the areas affected by a massive literacy campaign undertaken to correct a 75 percent rate of illiteracy among peasants. "There is freedom of expression and the people can take their destiny in their own hands," Rocha said through an interpreter.

To the question of Cuban and Soviet influence in Nicaragua, Sister Healy said that about 2,000 Cuban teachers and about 2,000 Cuban doctors were sent into the country after the Somoza overthrow to help Nicaraguans rebuild. "There is also a strong feeling in Nicaragua that Cuba helped them after their revolution," she said.

But, she said, "it simply is not true that Nicaragua is a Soviet or a Cuban satellite."

"There are deeply Catholic and Christian influences in Nicaragua and they have been carried into the changeover in leadership," she said. "Under Somoza's government, we had trouble celebrating the Word of God. Now we don't."

In addition to the tension experienced as the Church is divided over the new government, Nicaraguans have also been deeply frightened in recent months by acts of sabotage within the country and by U.S. policy statements concerning covert activity in Nicaragua.

Both Sister Healy and Rocha said that in recent months there had been sabotage at the airport and destruction of two key bridges which provided access to the border. Sister Healy said she had been informed that three lay catechists have been killed in Nicaragua within the last two weeks.

These types of sabotage prompted the Nicaraguan government to declare a state of siege, she said, an action which prompted criticism in the United States as a denial of rights.

The Nicaraguans took the action, Sister Healy said, because "they were scared to death" of an attempt to subvert the government.

She expressed support for a Mexican proposal that Nicaragua and the United States try to negotiate a relationship between the two which does not isolate Nicaragua from U.S. aid.

"My own opinion is that making friends in Central America is our best security," she said. "If we (the U.S.) make enemies, we're creating the conditions for other forces to step in."