Catholic priest Edwin Román —one of the most critical in Nicaragua— celebrated this August 3 the first year of having made the decision to go into exile in the United States. The decision was made after some statements by Vice President Rosario Murillo, in which he told an official media outlet that he had desecrated the temple he directed to “meet with a criminal,” alluding to Bishop Monsignor Silvio Báez, also a critic of Murillo.
After this time, the panorama seems to worsen in the opinion of Father Román, who indicates that in Nicaragua there is no longer religious freedom.
In Nicaragua, there are already two imprisoned priests, while another is under investigation and detained in a town in the north of the country for allegedly causing anxiety.
“In Nicaragua there is no religious freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of movement or civic mobilization. You live repressed. Not even those close to the dictatorship can get to the airport and take a plane, “Román emphasizes to the Voice of America.
The government has said through a statement issued by the National Police that the latest investigation that began against a religious, in this case against Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, who has been locked up since August 4 in a house cural, along with five other priests and two seminarians, is suspected of “attempting to organize violent groups, inciting them to carry out “acts of hatred against the population.”
However, Father Edwin Román has another interpretation and mentions that in Nicaragua he represents jail for all those who represent the opposition and assures that “for the dictatorship we are political opponents”, although he emphasizes that they have no interest in any position in the government.
“We are not looking for any earthly post. It is enough for us to serve, and stand up for the people, come out in their defense no matter who. We owe it to the children of God that we are all human beings”.
With Ortega’s measure against Álvarez and against the Church in Nicaragua in general, the priest Román considers that “in the language of the dictatorship the last cartridge is burning.”
“The prophets are always going to make people uncomfortable, because the persecutors are accused by their conscience,” considers Román, who led a church in the city of Masaya, one of the bastion cities of the protests against Ortega in 2018.
Last week, Vice President Murillo referred, without mentioning, to Monsignor Álvarez and accused him of “manipulating religious symbols” by carrying the image of the Blessed Sacrament near the parish house, which is where he remains held.
“The only persecutors and manipulators of religious signs have been the esoteric “first lady” and the dictator Daniel Ortega. They have persecuted the Catholic Church since the 1980s. The regime has tried to confuse the people of God, but they know the voice of their pastors,” Román responds to the accusation.
The priest considers that “the dictatorship has tried to rise up with the authority of being very “religious” by politically promoting altars to the Immaculate Conception of Mary (La Purísima), or with her “births”, in December, without being born to a new life. ”.
“By the way, they don’t have any religious authority to speak of God. Who has given them to them?” asks Román about it.
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