“A people without hope is a self-buried people, it is a people that can no longer see forward, towards the future or that thinks that it no longer has a future”, reflected Monsignor Rolando Álvarez during his homily on August 11, 2022, eight days before being transferred from Matagalpa to Managua under house arrest by de facto prison, without any accusation against him.
Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, is one of the most heard pastoral and prophetic voices inside and outside Nicaragua in recent years, and is now one of the 237 political prisoners in the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which continues to imprison Nicaraguan citizens and opponents under charges of fabricated crimes. The arrest of the bishop is another attempt by the dictatorship to silence the voices that call for justice in the face of the repression that he exercises in Nicaragua.
In 2022, Bishop Álvarez was persecuted by the Ortega Police and was also the victim of a hate campaign on social networks carried out by the state troll farm. Yet even in the darkest moments, which included transgression against his own family, his voice did not cease. “May the Lord always grant us ways of civic and peaceful solutions to all our problems and difficulties”, he asked in one of his last homilies.
The Editorial Board of CONFIDENTIAL selected Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, 56, the first bishop political prisoner in the history of Nicaragua, as the character of 2022. A recognition of his consistency, his pastoral work, and the example of his dignity and his resistance to persecution and harassment, and above all his prophetic voice that even being a prisoner of conscience cannot to be silenced by the Ortega dictatorship.
After 116 days at home in de facto prison, this December 13, Monsignor Álvarez was accused of the alleged crimes of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news.” A case with fabricated crimes, in charge of the Ortega justice, the executioner of the political prisoners of Nicaragua.
The bishop fulfills this December 18, 2022, 121 days of house arrest in Managua, which rises to 137 if the 15 days that he was locked up with other religious and lay people in the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa are included.
Ortega propaganda tried to strip him of his religious title, the bishop was singled out by name, exhibited without his ecclesiastical clothing, alone and in silence.
On May 29, 2022, when the siege against the bishop intensified, CONFIDENTIAL published a profile on his life and pastoral work titled: “The prophetic voice of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa”, which today republishes updated on the occasion of his election as character of the year.
The prophetic voice: “Painful experiences do not fall in vain”
Monsignor Rolando Álvarez earned the love and respect of his parishioners the moment he arrived in Matagalpa. He was received with applause, chimbombas, gunpowder and jubilation by the people who today regret his arrest.
In the eleven years that he has been a bishop, and 28 of his priestly life, Monsignor Álvarez has been characterized by his close and firm voice. The same as he stood up in favor of the peasants who opposed the mining extraction in Rancho Grande, of the victims of police abuses such as the case of the peasant Juan Lanzas, who lost both legs due to police brutality.
His voice was also heard together with bishops of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) who mediated in the National Dialogue that summoned Ortega for the massacre and repression against the citizen protests of the April 2018 Rebellion. And in that viral phrase: “Respect the homeland!” that he responded when they tried to question his solidarity with the victims of the repression.
In 2022, when the political persecution of the dictatorship escalated against the Catholic Church, the bishop once again raised his voice to denounce the police siege that included the intrusion of police officers into the home of a relative.
As a protest, the bishop took refuge in Managua and began a fast on water, serum, and prayer. The Police besieged him and then pursued him to Matagalpa, but days later he took to the streets with the Custody of the Blessed Sacrament in his hands to demand an end to the police siege against the priests of his Diocese.
“We are totally convinced that everything happens for our good, because God loves us and we love him. Painful experiences do not fall in vain, no. These experiences are offered to the Lord and the Lord returns them in blessings to us. Blessings for our beloved Nicaragua, ”said the bishop, when he was already locked up –although without a warrant– along with other priests in Matagalpa.
He did not aspire to be a bishop
The life of Monsignor Álvarez, who turned 56 on November 27, 2022, is full of nuances. In his youth, he escaped the conscription of the eighties and renounced a crush to give his life to the priesthood, without imagining or ambitioning that one day, not too far from his pastoral path, he would be consecrated as a bishop.
“In 1983 I entered the seminary and one day I saw a young man arrive to take refuge in this training center, he was fleeing from Sandinista persecution, he was the boy who coordinated Catholic youth groups at the national level. Years later that boy would be Monsignor Rolando Álvarez”, says Father Edwin Román, former parish priest of the San Miguel church, in Masaya, exiled due to persecution.
Father Román did not see young Rolando again because some time later he went with his family to Guatemala, where he finished his high school and became a seminarian, after considering for a year if this was his true vocation.
On December 7, 1994, the day of La Gritería in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in Nicaragua, Álvarez was ordained as a priest and 17 years later, in April 2011, he was consecrated as a bishop.
“I never expected to be a bishop, I always thought that I would be an intimate and close collaborator with the bishops, those who were my bishops, and dedicate myself with my heart, life, and soul to this pastoral work, but as a priest,” said the prelate. to the Catholic channel Diocese Media de Matagalpa, when he completed his first five years as bishop.
At that time, Monsignor Álvarez was already a priest of the Francisco de Asís Church, in Managua, and also served as secretary of the media department of the Episcopal Conference, which marked his interest in the media as an evangelizing channel, and was assistant secretary of the Episcopate Secretariat of Central America.
Pope Benedict XVI was the one who named him the ninth bishop of Matagalpa. According to what Álvarez told Magazine, from the newspaper La Prensa, the Pope offered to consecrate him in Rome, but he rejected the proposal because he wanted to do it in Nicaragua, together with his family, loved ones and his mentors.
The beginning of the bishopric
On April 2, 2011, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez left Managua for Matagalpa. The farewell was brief. According to newspaper reports of the time, a few faithful came to his parish to say goodbye and, after a few hugs and tears, he left for his new home. But in Matagalpa, the faithful awaited him with joy, and on the banks of the highway many came out to greet him with great joy.
“People flooded the streets. Some even cried. The schools brought out their musical bands. Several businesses changed their advertising reggaeton for songs to the Virgin. The houses where he passed were adorned with images of the Virgin Mary, John Paul II and the new bishop,” described a chronicle from La Prensa. Later, in the Cathedral, there was a lack of space for the crowd who wanted to enter and had to watch the ordination rite from giant screens that were installed on the outskirts.
The support that Monsignor Álvarez received that day was just a prelude to the affection that years later he earned as a bishop in the hearts of parishioners in that department, which he calls home.
“I already feel like a true northerner of those who walk in the city or those who ride horses or sing rancheras,” he said in his first bishop’s message.
The missionary bishop and dancer
Monsignor Álvarez is one of the bishops who interacts the most with his community. He has been seen crossing rivers in small rafts or on horseback, climbing mountains on foot or by mule to reach the most remote places in Matagalpa, where he is received by crowds who take advantage of the occasion to get married, baptize their children, hold communions and other religious activities that end in celebration.
“It is a life project to visit all the faithful in their own places, in their own homes, communities, it is a personal pastoral project and that of the Diocese, and also a long historical tradition that comes and goes from the first bishop,” he said. Monsignor, who set himself the goal of visiting the more than 400 communities in the department.
The bishop has also been seen preaching on board buses or dancing without any regard among the youth of the Catholic ministry, breaking piñatas in honor of his birthday, mopping the church or shopping in a supermarket like any other citizen.
The political voice of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez
The public life of the Bishop of Matagalpa is marked by his social and political reflections, which are so necessary in a troubled country like Nicaragua. In 2015, when he denounced extractivism in the Rancho Grande area, he got the government to declare that mining operation unfeasible.
During the first attempt at a National Dialogue, in 2018, Álvarez was the main moderator of the failed negotiation, and his voice was heard by both parties, even though the regime did not comply with the agreements and withdrew from the table without ending the repression.
Since 2018, his homilies have been characterized by his prophetic voice and reflections on the course of the country, the misfortunes that afflict the population, the victims of human rights violations, his call for dialogue and not to be indifferent to the social situation.
The bishop was one of the priests that the Ortega regime vetoed from the second negotiating table of 2019, when another dialogue between the Government and civil society was attempted, in which the CEN bishops participated as accompanists and witnesses, together with with the Apostolic Nuncio. In parallel, the regime launched a campaign of hate against the “most uncomfortable” religious: Monsignor Álvarez, Monsignor Silvio Báez (currently in exile) and Monsignor Abelardo Mata (today Bishop Emeritus of Estelí).
In the last four years, Monsignor Álvarez has been the target of hate campaigns by Sandinista sympathizers who accuse him of being an accomplice in the alleged “coup d’état.” Also of the siege of the Police and paramilitaries who desecrated the cathedral and attacked one of the collaborators of the Diocese.
“Do not do with the faithful what you want to do with me. Whatever you want to do with me, if you are going to do it, do it with me and not with the faithful, not with the holy people of God, I tell you clearly and simply,” said the bishop after denouncing the attack on one of his reading ministers.
To the attacks, Monsignor Álvarez responded with prayer. In her he found comfort and the strength to resist. He said so in one of the last transmissions on Facebook Live before he was kidnapped at dawn.
“Keep praying for us,” he asked, “remember that prayer is our strength and our power.”
