The Cardinal of Nicaragua, Leopoldo Brenes, affirmed this Sunday, December 25, that today’s “great challenge” is “how to preach, how to announce such difficult situations that we may live”, in a country immersed in a crisis that includes more than ten religious imprisoned in recent months.
“I think that today is the great challenge, how to do this, how to preach, how to announce such difficult situations that we can live, I just feel that it is looking at Christ, the Lord,” said Brenes, at the Sunday mass celebrated in the Cathedral Metropolitan of Managua.
Among the religious in prison is the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, Rolando Álvarez, who is accused of alleged conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news through information technology. information and communication to the detriment of the State and Nicaraguan society.
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The Nicaraguan opposition has told the cardinal and Pope Francis to keep silent about the alleged persecution suffered by the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
Pope Francis, for his part, has insisted on his commitment to dialogue and negotiation in Nicaragua.
Brenes asked the Catholic faithful this Sunday to ask Jesus Christ to spread “messages of peace, not messages that bring violence.”
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega often refers to the bishops with words like “coup plotters,” “pharisees,” or “whitewashed tombs.”
Nicaragua is experiencing a crisis that began with massive anti-government protests in 2018 that left, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), 355 people dead.
The Ortega government has admitted 200 deaths in the context of the protests, which it has branded as an attempted coup.
The IACHR points out that in Nicaragua there are more than 255 “political prisoners”, including former candidates for the Presidency, peasants, feminists, students, journalists, as well as other independent professionals.
