After the Police charged several dioceses of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church with the crime of money laundering on May 27, while formalizing the freezing of the accounts of the religious institution, a priest in exile described as “immoral” the signs.
Speaking to Article 66the religious source recalled that in 2018 the Ortega Police invented crimes to accuse all opponents, “therefore what the Police say is not credible, that they found a large amount of money in a Diocese,” said a priest.
Related news: Dictatorship accuses the Catholic Church of money laundering to justify the freezing of bank accounts
He also compared the accusations against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua with the alleged findings of thousands of dollars that the Police have made and that they affirm that it is a “blow against drug trafficking”, but that they almost never arrest those involved.
“So all the precedents that the Police have are diminishing their moral authority and are losing credibility, therefore, no one believes all those accusations that they make against the Catholic Church, because their behavior has not been honest or belligerent,” referred.
Regarding the freezing of bank accounts in the different Dioceses of the country, the exiled priest stated that this action was a “matter of time”, because the Nicaraguan dictatorship had already attacked priests, imprisoning some and banishing others, in addition to expelling nuns.
He also stressed that “all this attack and direct attacks is because – the Church – has denounced the corruption and abuse of power of the Ortega and Murillo family.”
Related news: Ortega’s persecution of the Church has forced 39 religious into exile
Another of the remarks made by the priest is that this new accusation of money laundering “is an oversight against all those who in 2018 expressed their desire for a change because we are already tired of so much abuse and manipulation of this family — Ortega y Murillo—who in the light of day has suddenly become rich».
“It is enough (to have) two fingers of a brain to know that Daniel Ortega’s family is taking money out of the country, but there are blind people who still believe that they are honest people,” he emphasized.
Pointing out the “little credibility of the Judiciary”, the priest indicated that now it is “easy to say that the Catholic Church is laundering money to freeze our accounts, but it is certain that the Government got a good scare because in many parishes they did not find more than a thousand Córdobas, because those of us who have lived in Nicaragua know that out of 100 parishes, 90 are from poor neighborhoods, so what they stole was the money that the people give to the Church.”
The religious concluded by affirming that the priests in Nicaragua feel alone and without any support from the highest ecclesiastical authorities “because they run or put someone in prison – as has happened with Monsignor Álvarez and other priests – and there is no pronouncement on the part of our bishops , becoming a mockery for the people, forcing many to make the decision to go into exile.
