The priest Sebastián López, parish priest of Santa Lucía in Ciudad Darío, department of Matagalpa, officiated the morning mass this Tuesday, August 16, in the atrium of the Church he administers, in the face of the police siege.
The officials of the dictatorship stationed themselves outside the religious temple and prevented the parishioners from entering the parish to participate in the mass scheduled for this morning.
Before the blockade of the Ortega agents, the priest celebrated the Eucharist in the atrium of the temple and the faithful lived the mass in the outskirts of the Church. Father Sebastián López bestowed the host through a perimeter fence that surrounds the parish.
Related note: Salvadoran Cardinal: Nicaraguans must freely express their faith
“In Nicaragua, the repression of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship does not rest. Today, the parish of Ciudad Darío woke up besieged by the Police. They did not allow the parishioners to enter and the priest had to celebrate mass at the temple entrance and pass the host through the perimeter fence,” wrote the religious journalist Israel González Espinoza.
The attack of the dictatorship against the Church also includes the imprisonment of three priests: Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, Father Manuel Salvador García and Father Óscar Benavidez, the latter was arrested on August 14, as confirmed by the Diocese of Siuna.
The bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, celebrates today, August 16, 13 days locked up in the Episcopal Curia. The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo ordered him to be held in the episcopal seat of the city indefinitely. The sanctioned Police maintains a fence of officers on the outskirts of the Curia, preventing their pastoral work and violating the constitutional right to free movement.
The regime also ordered the closure of a dozen Church and independent radio and television channels in its furious delirium to silence any glimmer of dissident voice that does not respond to the interests of the Ortega Murillo family.
