The Nicaraguan regime, through the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), canceled this Tuesday, February 7, the legal status of the Juan Pablo II Catholic University and its headquarters located in Managua, Chontales, Matagalpa and Granada.
Similarly, it outlawed the Autonomous Christian University of Nicaragua (UCAN) and its offices located in León, Chinandega, Estelí, Juigalpa, in Chontales; Masaya and Matagalpa. That house of study is also of the Catholic order.
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According to Ministerial Agreement No. 28-2023-OSFL, published in La Gaceta, official newspaper and signed by the Minister of the Interior Maria Amelia Colonel Kinloch, the illegalization of both houses of higher studies is due to the fact that they allegedly failed to comply with “the Laws that regulate them.”
It asserts that both alma maters are in breach of their obligations under the Law before the National Council of Universities (CNU), the National Council for Evaluation and Accreditation (CNEA) and the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB).
The Juan Pablo II University was directed by Father Ramiro Tijerino, a priest from Matagalpa who was exiled to the United States by the Nicaraguan regime on February 9, along with 221 political prisoners. The priest spent several months detained in “El Chipote” since he was captured by the Police on August 19, 2021.
Likewise, they point out that they are not accredited in quality indicators, do not report their financial statements and boards of directors; do not present clarifications on the patrimony, fixed assets, income, expenses, execution of funds; increases and decreases in unjustified accounts, in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 1115 «General Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations» and Law No. 704 «Creative Law of the National System for the Assurance of the Quality of Education and Regulator of the National Evaluation and Accreditation Council».
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Other of the accusations made by the Ortega regime to decapitate the two religious universities is that they were given an extension from January 13, 2022, “so that they could update themselves according to the Law” and they would not have complied with what was required.
However, it affirms that they “ignored it, since they did not comply with their obligations as established in article 34 numerals 3, 7, 24, 25, 26, 26.1, 26.3 and 27 of Law No. 1115, by not reporting its financial statements for more than two years according to fiscal periods, with detailed breakdowns of income and expenses, verification balance, detail of donations (origin, provenance and final beneficiary)”.
Cáritas, the social arm of the Church
The endless obstacles that the Nicaraguan dictatorship imposed on Cáritas de Nicaragua and the Diocesan Caritas Association of Jinotega forced the authorities of said charitable organizations of the Catholic Church to request their dissolution, according to two Ministerial Agreements No. 29 and 30 of Migob, published in The Gazette.
The official documents indicate that the head of the Interior authorized the request of the Assembly of Members of Cáritas Nicaragua and Jinotega to dissolve said non-governmental organizations. The closure of the Cáritas headquarters in Jinotega was approved on December 20, 2022 and that of Cáritas Nicaragua was on January 31 of this year.
Related news: Cáritas Jinotega will close, the Government prohibited it from receiving support from donors
At the beginning of February it was learned that Cáritas Jinotega, headed by the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN), Monsignor Carlos Herrera, would cease its operations because the Ministry of the Interior denied it the endorsement to receive support from donor organizations.
The entity helped with food banks for the poor, covered the costs of trips to the doctor for people with terminal illnesses, gave away crutches and prostheses to people in need, provided low-cost medicines in coordination with the John XXIII Institute and other charitable works. charity that the population requested at the Cáritas headquarters located in the city of Las Brumas.
In 2019, after the social revolt of April 2018, Monsignor Herrera denounced that the Daniel Ortega regime blocked the entry of international donations channeled through Cáritas, including consecrating wine, which is used in the Eucharist.
The regime’s relationship with the Catholic Church was fractured when the bishops of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) mediated a failed National Dialogue in 2018. Ortega accused the bishops of “coup plotters” because they “read the primer” to him, a sheet route that proposed the resignation of the Sandinista caudillo and the holding of new presidential elections as a way out of the socio-political crisis.
On February 2, 2022, the regime ordered the cancellation of the legal status of a group of NGOs belonging to the Diocese of Estelí, including Cáritas Diocesanas, the social arm of the Church in that department.
