The bishops of the Panama Conference spoke after the sentence of 26 years in prison against the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos. The leaders of the canal country expressed their solidarity with the Nicaraguan people and the cardinal hostage of conscience of the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
The Episcopal Conference of Panama highlighted that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo “has decreed the loss of his citizen rights in perpetuity” to the also administrator of the Diocese of Estelí.
“The situation of those brothers who have been deported from their homeland to the United States also hurts and saddens us,” says the statement from the Panamanian Church that they released on their social networks.
Related news: “There are no dictators who have ended well,” says Honduran cardinal after sentencing Monsignor Álvarez
The Bishops of Panama echoed the words of Pope Francis to pray for all those who suffer in “our sister Nicaragua” and invoke “the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, patroness of that nation to open the hearts of political leaders and of all citizens to the sincere search for peace, which is born of truth, justice, freedom and love and is achieved through the patient exercise of dialogue”.
The Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, the Cardinal of Honduras, Óscar Andrés Rodríguez; Pope Francis; Personalities from international politics and democratic countries have spoken out in rejection of the decision of the Nicaraguan dictatorship to sentence the Bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, in an express summary trial.
“How sad those judges who are iniquitous, how have they sentenced a brother bishop, because he dared to tell the truth, to 26 years in prison? The same thing that happened in the first centuries of Christianity, when people were persecuted for their faith,” questioned the cardinal from Honduras.
«United with Pope Francis and the Universal Church, we express our deep sorrow at any act of injustice. We reject the sentence of 26 years in prison for our brother Monsignor Rolando Álvarez,” read the statement from the bishops of Costa Rica.
