The Catholic Church of Nicaragua invited this Sunday, July 24, its faithful to commemorate on July 31 the second anniversary of what it considers an “attack” against it, which occurred in 2020, when a chapel of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua , Immaculate Conception of Mary was set on fire.
The religious institution called on believers to participate in a “day of reparation for the attack committed against the Blood of Christ,” said a spokesman.
On August 31, 2020, the chapel that houses an image of the Blood of Christ that has remained in Nicaragua since 1638 and before which, in 1996, Pope Saint John Paul II knelt and prayed, caught fire after an unknown person ” he threw a bomb,” the Archdiocese of Managua reported at the time, based on witness accounts.
Related news: Vatican calls for “transparent” investigations after the fire at the Chapel of the Blood of Christ
The Nicaraguan Police, whose supreme chief is President Daniel Ortega, who accuses the clergy of wanting to overthrow him, determined that it was an accident unleashed when a container of alcohol fell on a candle.
Pope Francis described what happened as an “attack” against the temple of Nicaragua, a country where 58.5% of its inhabitants consider themselves Catholic.
An investigation published by the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) ruled out the possibility of an accident, based on the fact that the container with alcohol was several meters below the candle, and that, if the fire had been stimulated, its temperature, of 36.1 degrees Celsius, “would not be enough to produce a suspended concentration to saturate” the chapel.
According to the Cenidh, between December 2018 and August 2020, the Catholic Church and its representatives in Nicaragua suffered a total of 24 attacks, from desecration of temples to physical attacks against religious, some of whom had to opt for exile. .
Among the attacks, the Cenidh reported the case of the priest Mario Guevara, who was attacked with sulfuric acid by a Russian citizen, and that of the parish priest Edwing Román, nephew of the national hero Augusto C. Sandino, whom the Police locked up in his parish for nine days without water or electricity, after supporting a group of women on hunger strike.
Related news: Ortega police rule out criminal hand in fire of the chapel of the Blood of Christ
The Cenidh and other humanitarian organizations have warned that the “persecution” against the Catholic Church has intensified in 2022, after a bishop was besieged in a Managua temple, two priests were arrested for alleged assaults, and the Missionaries of Charity, a group founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, were expelled.
The differences between Ortega and the Catholic Church are historical, but they intensified in 2014 when the Episcopate warned the president that his style of government, described by the opposition as “authoritarian”, could lead to a social explosion, which finally occurred in 2018, and for which the Sandinista leader has referred to the clergy as “coup plotters.”
