Held from the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, spoke – during his homily at noon this Saturday – about the “investigation” that he opened in his against the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“I am being investigated, well, I don’t know what, but, well, they will be making their own guesses and, second, that they have formally said that we have a house for a prison,” said the priest.
On Friday, August 5, the regime’s Police reported that the bishop is under house arrest and is being investigated for allegedly “organizing violent groups” and “carrying out acts of hate.”
Since last Thursday the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa has been besieged by dozens of police and riot police. The prelate remains locked up along with five religious and six lay people.
Monsignor Álvarez will do mass every day while he is being held
The bishop of Matagalpa also announced that he will hold mass every day as long as the Ortega-Murillo regime keeps him detained in the Episcopal Curia.
The masses will be held at 12:00 noon and will be broadcast through the social networks of the Diocese of Matagalpa.
“We here are gathered and retained and we are always with inner strength and peace in our hearts and the joy that the risen Jesus gives us,” he said.
In addition, he reminded Nicaraguans that “fear paralyzes, self-burying despair and hatred is the death of the heart. Therefore, hate is answered with love, despair with living hope and fear with the strength and courage that the glorious and risen Christ gives us.
Persecution against the Catholic Church
In the last two months, the regime of Ortega and Murillo undertook a repressive escalation against the Catholic Church that has left so far: two priests imprisoned, 18 nuns expelled from the country, two priests besieged, one of them now at home in jail and the closure of a dozen religious media.
The priest Manuel Salvador García Rodríguez, parish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno church —also known as El Calvario—, in Nandaime, Granada, was the first religious to face the justice of the regime, being 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 fine.
Last July 6, 18 Missionaries of Charityan order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, were expelled from the country, being transferred from Managua and Granada to the border with Costa Rica, by the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration (DGME) and the Police.
Also, Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, priest of the Perpetuo Socorro parish in Boaco, has been in preventive detention since July 13, awaiting trial for the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl.
The priest Uriel Vallejos and a group of parishioners remained besieged by the Police for almost four days in the parish house of Jesús de la Divina Misericordia, in Sébaco.
In addition, between August 1 and 2, the regime closed 14 media outlets: eleven stations, ten belonging to the Diocese of Matagalpa and the independent Radio Vos, also took several cable television channels off the air and took off the air the local channel RB3 “El Canal de la Zona Láctea”, whose programming was broadcast through subscription television.
