Four women were carrying a cross on a street in Masaya this Saturday, November 19, when the Police broke into the procession and forced the faithful and the priest Alexander Santiago Ruiz Fajardo to return to the El Calvario parish in Masaya, in another act of religious persecution. of the Ortega-Murillo regime.
A video published by that ecclesial community on Facebook documented how an officer approaches the group of believers, answering a phone call, but soon the police officer crosses their path and tells them that they cannot continue. Little more than three minutes had elapsed since everything had started.
The decision caused the discontent of the people, who accompanied the women in their shared act of faith. People described the decision as “unfair”, while they wondered why the “commissioner” had not been present to communicate the order, which, according to sources on the site, was justified as an act to preserve “public safety”.
In the midst of the tension, it can be seen how the priest tried to calm things down until the officer hands him his phone and the priest talks to another person, apparently the police chief. After the phone call, the priest grabs the cross and returns saying the Our Father, accompanied by a handful of faithful on a symbolic tour of faith in the face of oppression.
From the pulpit, the religious asked for prayers. “We are going to offer silence and prayer to the Lord of Miracles around the cross. That is a Christian who loves the cross,” he stated.
Ruiz Fajardo is a young priest from Jinotepe, in Carazo, who shares a religious vocation with his brother Said, who is working in the Managua Cathedral.
Living the faith in times of repression
One day after the first was a victim of the repressive act, Father Said participated this Sunday, November 20, in a procession in honor of Christ the King, which could only take place within the grounds of the Cathedral after the prohibition of the Police to do the religious act.
In other video published by the Archdiocese of Managua, this priest can be seen carrying Christ the King. The new cases of harassment by the ruling party add to 396 attacks by the Ortega dictatorship against the Catholic Church, registered between 2018 and October 2022, according to the recent study entitled Nicaragua: a persecuted church? published by the researcher Martha Patricia Molina, which also raises at least 127 this year.
This increase in attacks against Catholics has been reflected in 104 attacks directed at temples, 30 at Non-Profit Organizations, Catholic media and Church projects, 133 at religious, 53 graffiti and hate messages, 14 criminal proceedings and 62 attacks on lay people.
Ortega has maintained a sustained campaign against the Church since 2018, when the religious denounced the repression of the State. At least 355 people were murdered in the context of the demonstrations, but the dictatorship maintains that what took place was an attempt to overthrow and accuses the priests of “coup plotters.”
A exiled bishopother secluded at home by force by the Police under orders of the dictatorship since last August 19, seven priests are in jail and two seminarians also as part of a repressive escalation in which they expelled the apostolic nuncio last March and 18 nuns of the order of charity last July.
In his last speech last September, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Police, Ortega accused the priests of instigating his murder in 2018 without offering any type of evidence, nor mentioning specific names.
“It is evident that the indiscriminate persecution of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship is due to the message, the dissemination of the truth and the word of the Gospel that priests and bishops are carrying out,” commented researcher Martha Patricia Molina during the presentation of her investigation on November 17. .
