The dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo continue their anti-Christian crusade and this weekend they banished two more priests, belonging to the Diocese of Matagalpa and Estelí, confirming that the tyrants attack with “hatred and fury” the episcopates that have been in charge of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, with the aim of decimating them.
According to information released by human rights defender Haydee Castillo, through her personal X account, priests Denis Martínez and Leonel Balmaceda were exiled to Rome on the night of Saturday, August 17.
The two religious figures were recently kidnapped by the Sandinista Police and were in a state of enforced disappearance, according to the religious rights defender, Martha Patricia Molina.
The defender denounces that the dictatorship, in its war against the Catholic Church, has established a “corridor of exile” for priests, which must continue to be rejected, denounced and not naturalized, because forced displacement is a crime.
“The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has a corridor of exile to the Vatican. Last night Father Denis Martínez and Father Leonel Balmaceda were exiled. We must not naturalize forced displacement (because) it constitutes a Crime Against Humanity,” Castillo denounces.
Father Martínez worked as a religious trainer at the Interdiocesan Seminary of Our Lady of Fatima in Managua, although he belonged to the Diocese of Matagalpa. He was arrested by the Sandinista police on August 11 and eventually exiled.
For his part, Father Balmaceda was in charge of the Jesús de Caridad parish, in the municipality of La Trinidad, Estelí. A diocese that was also in charge of Monsignor Álvarez. He had been kidnapped by the regime’s henchmen on August 10.
Dictators Ortega and Murillo are waging an unprecedented anti-Christian crusade in Nicaragua. Their attacks are directed against the Catholic Church and evangelical denominations. However, the Catholic Church, and mainly the Diocese of Matagalpa, have borne the brunt.
In the midst of this crusade against Christianity, the tyrants have ordered the banishment, prevented entry into the country or forced into exile 29 priests of the Matagalpa Diocese, including its bishop, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who was also arbitrarily prosecuted and sentenced to more than 26 years in prison for fabricated crimes.
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The priestly staff of Matagalpa, which before the political and social crisis in Nicaragua was made up of 62 priests, has now been reduced to 28, that is to say less than half.
The Matagalpa episcopate serves 28 parishes. Catholic religious communities, mainly from the mountains in the north of the country, have denounced that the harassment and threats by the Sandinista Police have caused various ecclesiastical groups to stop meeting in churches and to stop ringing the bells for mass in the parishes of the diocese.
Analysts who follow the adverse situation facing the Church have said that the 28 priests who remain active in Matagalpa are not enough to serve the faithful in the same number of parishes where there are, in total, 630 rural communities.
