The Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes, assured that all the Church’s accounts are in order and they are ready to respond to the accusations of alleged money laundering attributed to them by the Ortega-Murillo regime. Likewise, he said he was unaware that the Ortega Police had found money in any parish.
The leader of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, in statements given on Saturday, May 27, to the digital media outlet Despacho 505; confirmed the freezing of the bank accounts of the religious institution, but that they were not aware of the accusation made by the Police, and it was not until he saw the news in the media that he learned of the accusation of alleged money laundering made by the regime.
«They had told me about the suspension of the accounts, but I don’t know if the Presidency has been informed otherwise. Only the accounts of the parishes, and that is what we are seeing, “said Cardinal Brenes to the digital media, after learning of the official statement where they assure that they found “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in some dioceses and that they had ” discovered a money laundering network” in those institutions.
Brenes assured that he is completely unaware that the Police have found bags with hundreds of thousands of dollars in a church, as stated in the police statement on Saturday. The Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN), the highest ecclesial authority, has not yet issued any statement.
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For their part, the networks of collaborators that are distributed throughout the country, to monitor and report the repressive activities of the dictatorship, have not reported any raids on churches.
The archbishop indicated that they are processing the information they are receiving, especially the accusation of money laundering, because they are barely hearing about it from the news, but they have not received any official communication from the Government, nor have they been notified that they have found money in some temple or that it has discovered an alleged money laundering network within the religious institution.
Likewise, he informed that all the bishops would be analyzing the statements made by the Police, but he announced that all the accounts of the institution are in order.
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Similarly, he assured that all the churches in the country will continue working because “the work of the Church is evangelization.”
The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has escalated the repression against the Catholic Church. He recently imprisoned three priests belonging to the Diocese of Matagalpa and Estelí, administered by the bishop who is a political hostage to the regime, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years in prison for alleged treason.
