Daniel Ortega’s government banished more priests and religious as part of the campaign against the Catholic Church. On this occasion he sent fifteen religious people into exile, among them Bishop Rolando Álvarez. All political prisoners of the Sandinista dictatorship who were serving sentences or were accused of “treason to the country.”
The Nicaraguan Press highlights that the two bishops and thirteen priests left this Saturday on a flight to Caracas and from there on another to Rome, bound for the Vatican.
Among those released are also Bishop Isidoro Mora and thirteen other priests detained in December, according to priest Uriel Vallejos, humanitarian activist Haydée Castillo and the media, all in exile.
“The Ortega-Murillos want to leave Nicaragua without priests. Another plane full of shepherds from the town to exile,” denounced Vallejos.
Monsignor Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí, both in northern Nicaragua, had been imprisoned by the regime for 500 days. He was sentenced by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega in February 2023 to 26 years and 4 months in prison for crimes considered treason.
The religious had a prominent role in the mediation carried out by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua during the failed dialogue process after the massive protests that occurred in April 2018. Later, in August 2022, he was arrested by the National Police, who sent him to his house, accused of “conspiracy to commit damage to national integrity and propagation of false news.”
On February 9, 2023, he was sent to the National Penitentiary System, the maximum security prison in Nicaragua known as “La Modelo”, after refusing to get on a plane that was going to take him, along with 222 other released Nicaraguan political prisoners, to the United States. Joined. The bishop’s refusal provoked the indignation of Ortega, who described him as “arrogant,” “unhinged,” and “energetic.”
A day later he was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison, stripped of his nationality, and suspended his citizenship rights for life.
The relations between the Ortega regime and the Catholic Church are experiencing moments of great tension, marked by the expulsion and imprisonment of priests, the prohibition of religious activities, and the suspension of diplomatic relations.
Ortega has described the Church as a “mafia.” Meanwhile, Pope Francis described the Sandinista as a “rude dictatorship” in dialogue with Infobae.
“With great respect, I have no choice but to think about an imbalance in the person who directs (Ortega). There we have a bishop imprisoned, a very serious, very capable man. “He wanted to bear his testimony and did not accept exile,” Francisco told the Infobae portal in an interview on March 10.
The release of the religious occurs 14 days after Pope Francis, after praying the first Angelus of the year, expressed his “concern” about the detention of Catholic priests in Nicaragua, and asked that “the path of dialogue be always sought.” to overcome problems.
Also almost three weeks after the United States demanded that Ortega “immediately” release Álvarez, and nine days after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCNUDH) for Central America demanded that the Ortega regime report about the whereabouts of Bishop Isidoro Mora, who had been detained since last December 20 in the midst of a wave of arrests of Catholic religious.
On October 18, the Nicaraguan dictatorship released 12 priests and sent them to the Vatican after an agreement with the Holy See, although Bishop Álvarez was not among them, who was reluctant to leave the country. Previously, on February 9, 2023, the authorities released another 8 priests and sent them to the United States, as part of 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners.
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