Since 2018, in his homilies, Monsignor Jose Leonardo Urbina Rodriguez, priest of the parish of Perpetuo Socorro, in Boaco, asked for the release of political prisoners, prayed for a Nicaragua in freedom and expressed solidarity with the citizens who were protesting against the Government, detailed religious, released prisoners and Catholic parishioners of that city. “That is why the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo had him on file, because they know that in some way he supported the blue and white struggle,” said a citizen who participated in the protests.
“Monsignor Leonardo Urbina is very loved, proof of that is that people took to the streets to protest and demand their freedom, losing their feartoday in all the streets of the city there was talk of the injustice that is being committed because it is known that those who accuse him are chips of the Sandinista regime”, commented a parishioner who worked closely with the also vicar of the Boaco pastoral zone, who has been in prison since July 13 and faces trial accused of the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl.
For Jaime Ampié, a former political prisoner from Boaco who was imprisoned from May 30, 2018 to May 20, 2019, the presence —at the judicial hearings in Managua— of several Sandinistas as “witnesses or companions” of the family of the alleged victim, shows that this is “a political trial.”
“Mrs. Reyna Oporta, a Sandinista councilor, who was a witness in the trial against me, who even while crying told me that she had seen me shoot, clearly lying in a political trial, has now been taken to be part of another Sandinista lynching, but now against Monsignor Leonardo Urbina”, assured the released political prisoner.
The parishioner, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, insisted that “the FSLN has unleashed persecution in order to silence our pastors and prepare for a process in which there is no voice against them.”
“They know that the priests in Nicaragua are voices heard and respected by the people and are a strong link in the communities, that’s why they want to intimidate them,” he explained.
From the Church of Boaco they defend him
The priest Allan Paizano, from the Santiago Apóstol parish in Boaco, advocated prayer after the “commotion” caused by the news of the arrest of Monsignor Urbina, and maintained that “the state of defenselessness in which we Nicaraguans find ourselves causes sadness. , where we are not questioned, where we are not judged for being innocent or guilty, but where we are declared guilty for being a priest”.
“If they call us terrorists, if they call us coup plotters, if they call us murderers, let them insult us, but we are not. The important thing is that God knows that we are not,” he said in a program broadcast by Radio Católica de Boaco, referring to the attacks by Ortega and the regime’s sympathizers who have used those adjectives against the priests when they raised their voices against the repression and massacre that left more than 325 murdered between April and September 2018.
In his message, he insisted that the laws of Nicaragua indicate that the innocence of every citizen “who can be tried” must be presumed.
“We are all equal before the law, if I am accused I appear before the law, so that they can prove my guilt. The question is, in that trial am I going to find an independent and impartial court in this country? ”, He questioned.
The priest insisted that “the problem is not that we are accused, because we will never claim irresponsibility, we will never claim immunity, we will never claim impunity, but as citizens we do have rights (…) and we can point out injustices.”
Paizano said that Monsignor Urbina, 51, “does not fight with anyone, he is an easygoing person, he has always been very kind” and that is why “it hurts deep down to see him humiliated, handcuffed, like a criminal.”
He questioned that the vicar of the pastoral zone of Boaco appeared being judged in Managua when he is from Boaco, and recalled that, as established by law, he has the right to a defense and instead “a defender was appointed by the same system ”.
“They haven’t told us: ‘Look, find him a lawyer,'” he lamented.
Urbina became the second religious arrested by the Ortega-Murillo regime. The priest Manuel Salvador Garcia Rodriguezparish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno church —also known as El Calvario—, in Nandaime, Granada, was sentenced on June 22 to two years in prison for the alleged crime of threatening five people with a knife and a fine of 14 116 cordobas or 200 days fines.
The religious was transferred to the Penitentiary System of Granada, where he will remain in prison, according to the court ruling, which sentenced him after the night of May 30, he went out to the atrium of the church with a machete in his hand in a defensive attitude against a group of villagers who yelled expletives at him like “assassin”.
Since his arrest on June 2, it has been known that he was accused of “physical violence in an ideal contest of psychological violence” against Martha Candelaria Rivas Hernández, the alleged victim, whom the regime also convicted after she refused to sign the complaint for the alleged intentional aggression.
Diocese of Granada: “We put ourselves in the name of the Lord”
The Presbyteral Council of the Diocese of Granada, which also serves Boaco, chaired by Monsignor Jorge Solórzano, urged through a message “not to be carried away by discouragement, nor lose hope.”
“We thank God for your prayers, affection and solidarity in these difficult times, your compassion unites us in the suffering caused by the imprisonment of Fathers Manuel de Salvador García and Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, with them we all stand in the hands of the Lord”, details the message.
+++ Message from the Presbyteral Council of our Diocese of Granada in communion with our Bishop and Pastor Mons. Jorge Solórzano Pérez: pic.twitter.com/dGOXacDLAd
– Diocese of Granada (@DiocGranada) July 14, 2022
They invited all parishes to hold “daily days of prayer imploring the Lord, the virtue of a firm certainty that the path of love, forgiveness and mercy will make possible the full reconciliation of the people of God”.
“Priests and faithful, let us keep in mind in the Eucharistic celebration every day, prayers for the spiritual strength of Fathers Manuel Salvador García and Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, with whom our fraternal love is always”, adds the text.
