Monsignor Rolando Álvarez Lagos, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, denounced that two priests were insulted and verbally assaulted by the police officers who keep the Santo Cristo de Las Colinas parish under siege.
In that religious temple, the prelate has been fasting and praying “indefinitely” since last Friday, May 20, due to the resurgence of the persecution of the Ortega-Murillo regime against him and his family.
The bishop explained that he was celebrating mass alone because Fathers Yedris Calero and Pablo Villafranca were prevented from entering the religious temple by the Police of the Nicaraguan dictatorship. Both priests would concelebrate the mass with the cardinal in Managua.
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“It is empty (the religious temple) because the Police do not allow entry, they keep the temple cordoned off, but they have also seen that no priest accompanies me because two brothers who came to concelebrate with me were rejected, impeding their passage with rudeness, even rudeness” Monsignor Álvarez denounced during his Sunday homily.
To Father Pablo Antonio Villafranca, parish priest of Our Lord of Veracruz, the police officers said an offense against him and his mother “with that ugly word; yelling at the other end of the interlocutor (radio) “that son of a bitch… don’t let him pass”».
“Unfortunately, we insist that with these attitudes, harmony, fraternity, dialogue are not paid for at all, and rather things and the social situation that Nicaraguans live in are stressed,” the Catholic hierarch insisted.
Father Harving Padilla and the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, live under a permanent siege by the Police. The parishes of San Juan Bautista de Masaya and Santo Cristo de Esquipulas in Managua are besieged by a strong force of police officers and have not allowed the faithful to enter mass.
In its attack against the Catholic Church, the regime ordered Channel 51, Canal Católico, owned by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, which is managed by Monsignor Álvarez, to be removed from the country’s cable companies.
