The bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) issued this Sunday morning, May 22, a statement confirming the difficult situation that the Nicaraguan Church is experiencing under the increasing siege to which it is being subjected by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
«We are living difficult times as a nation and our duty as a Church is to announce the truth of the Gospel; in communion with the successor of Saint Peter and each bishop of our Ecclesiastical Province of Nicaragua together with each presbytery and all the people of God”, say the Catholic bishops.
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The Nicaraguan Catholic hierarchy also closed ranks with the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who is fasting and praying in the parish of Las Colinas de Managua due to the growing harassment of the Ortega regime that prevents him from carrying out his pastoral work freely.
“In particular, we express our solidarity and closeness to our brother, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who feels anxiety for his personal safety and the possibility of exercising his right to live and celebrate his faith and fulfill his pastoral mission in an atmosphere of peace,” the ministers point out. religious in the statement.
Likewise, the bishops of Nicaragua assured that they are always willing to give their contributions to the country in favor of “the common good, reconciliation and brotherhood of Nicaraguans.”
Church-State tension at peak
Relations between the Nicaraguan Church and the Ortega regime have reached their highest point of tension since the breakdown of communication channels between the two institutions that occurred in July 2018, when fanatical mobs from the Sandinista Front attacked Bishops Leopoldo Brenes and Silvio José Báez together with the then Apostolic Nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag in the Basilica of San Sebastián in Diriamba. “We express our solidarity and closeness to our brother, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who feels anxiety about his personal safety and the possibility of exercising his right to live and celebrate his faith,” the statement said.
Since July 2018, both Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have continuously railed against the Church, falsely accusing the bishops of promoting a “coup d’état,” which is what the protests are called in government jargon. anti-government protests of 2018 that demanded the departure of the presidential couple from power and that were harshly repressed by the Police and paramilitary forces.
Since last Thursday, the police harassment that priests such as Bishop Rolando Álvarez had already been experiencing increased exponentially, and the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post Office (Telcor) ordered subscription television companies to take Nicaragua’s Catholic Channel off the air. , the television station of the bishops of the country.
“What happens is that the government has always wanted a mute Church, it does not want us to speak, it does not want us to announce hope to the people, nor denounce injustice,” Bishop Álvarez told the media in the Las Colinas parish of Managua, from where he has begun a fast of prayer with water and serum until he is guaranteed the end of the persecution ordered by the Ortega regime.
