The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio José Báez, from his exile in the United States, revealed, through a note posted on your personal Facebook accountwho in August 2022, when Monsignor Rolando Álvarez was still surrounded by the Sandinista Police in the Matagalpa Cathedral, had communicated his determination not to submit to the exile that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo intended to impose on him.
«I spoke by phone with Monsignor Álvarez… (and) on that occasion he told me that he would not leave Nicaragua for any reason, unless the Pope told him to. He added that it was a conscious decision before God, “explained Monsignor Báez.
Leaving that the Sandinista dictatorship would be pressing a “negotiation” with Bishop Álvarez to give him his freedom in exchange for him accepting exile, Bishop Báez said with determination: “So there is nothing to negotiate. I know Rolando and he will never negotiate a conscious decision that he has made and that I fully understand ».
Monsignor Báez also recalled, in the same publication, the circumstances that he experienced in 2019, when he had to leave Nicaragua by order of the Holy See. «In 2019 I would have done the same as him (Álvarez). I would never have been banished from my country. If I left, it was in obedience to the Pope who sent me, “he said.
I support Álvarez in his decision, “even paying a price of pain”
The Catholic leader exiled and stripped of his nationality on February 15, along with 93 other Nicaraguans, was sympathetic to the “painful” decision made by his brother bishop to assume prison but reject forced exile. “… I support it. As an innocent citizen he has the right to live free in his country. In addition, a pastor bishop does not go far from his town because a dictatorship imposes it on him. I would have acted the same, even paying a price of pain.
Finally, Monsignor Báez promised to continue raising his voice to denounce “the crime committed by the Sandinista dictatorship against my brother bishop” while promising to continue “demanding his release and praying for him every day so that he is strong and has health and lots of hope”. He also asked the Church “to denounce this injustice and continue praying for him (Álvarez).
A few hours ago it was learned that Bishop Álvarez was taken from the La Modelo penitentiary, in Tipitapa, and transferred to a house in the Archdiocese of Managua, where a negotiation was taking place between the Government, the bishop and a representative of the Vatican to release him, in exchange for him agreeing to go into exile, but which the religious rejected and asked for his unconditional release.
Related news: Monsignor Rolando Álvarez rejects freedom in exchange for exile: “He wants to be free in his country”, say religious voices
Faced with the bishop’s refusal, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo would have decided to confine him again in a maximum security cell in La Modelo. All this version was questioned by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, who reportedly said, in an interview with Radio Corporación, that Álvarez was still locked up in Tipitapa and that the media had published false information, without clarifying whether he had actually been removed and taken to “negotiate » with his jailers.
Earlier, after this supposed negotiation was revealed, Bishop Báez himself said, also on his Facebook account, that he had no information about the release of Monsignor Álvarez. “I sincerely hope that we will soon see him free thanks to the greatness of his faith and the incessant prayer of the people of God,” he said in that first message.
