But there was another side of the story that was hidden behind a veil of U.S. government secrecy. For years, the CIA and the White House had been funneling money through the Catholic Church into Nicaragua to destabilize the government. In effect, the Reagan administration had an inside-outside game going, Cardinal Obando and a group of right-wing Catholic priests were spreading around money to subvert Nicaragua from the inside while the Contra rebels were inflicting bloody havoc from the outside.