The dictator Daniel Ortega raised the attack against the Catholic Church and this Friday, May 26, he ordered the freezing of the bank accounts of the religious institution in an attempt to suffocate it financially
Sources close to the Nicaraguan Church confirmed to the media outlet 100% Noticias that the Ortega-Murillo regime “froze the bank accounts of the Archdiocese of Managua.”
The source told the news outlet that the Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, has tried, since last night, May 25; access the institution’s accounts, but he has not been able to, which shows the blockade.
Related news: Ortega dictatorship orders arrest and investigation against two priests of the Diocese of Estelí
“All the accounts of Churches, schools, the (Episcopal) Conference, (stations of) radios, had the minimum amount of money, just so that they were active”, but they were blocked.
The dictatorship’s maneuver intends to cause a stoppage of the normal activities of the religious institution, since it will be unable to honor its economic commitments by seeing its administrative operation interrupted.
Blockade against other dioceses
Although the Archdiocese of Managua and the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN), the highest Catholic authorities in the country, have not issued any official communication, it has been reported by different sources that the bank blockade has also fallen on the Dioceses of Estelí and Matagalpa and other diocese.
In the Estelí case, the freezing of the bank accounts would be related to the house arrest and police investigation of the priests Pastor Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides, parish priest of the Divina Providencia church, in Jalapa, and the parish priest of the Estelí cathedral, Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez . Both belong to the Diocese of Estelí, whose apostolic administrator, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, is imprisoned by the dictatorship.
Related news: Ortega executed 140 attacks against the Catholic Church in 2022
While in the case of Matagalpa, the Ortega Police confirmed the arrest and investigation against the priest Jaime Iván Montesinos Sauceda, parish priest of the San Juan Pablo II church, in Villa Chagüitillo.
The dictators Ortega and Murillo maintain an open persecution against the Catholic Church and in their speeches they constantly promote hatred against the institution and its religious, whom they accuse of having been “accomplices of the coup attempt”, alluding to the social protests of 2018.
According to a study carried out by the researcher and lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has executed, in the first three months of this year, 90 direct attacks against Catholicism, 80 more compared to the first quarter of the 4 previous years.
