The priest of Spanish origin Jesús María Palma attended two churches in the city of Jinotega; one was the San Isidro Labrador parish, in the La Curva neighborhood; and the other, the Santa Ana parish, in the Carlos Rizo neighborhood. He recently had to leave them and leave the country.
Up to now, the parishioners have not received a clear explanation from the superiors of the religious, nor from government authorities, although the latter do not usually report when they have decided to expel a Catholic missionary, as has happened in dozens of Previous cases since the Daniel Ortega regime has declared war on the Catholic Church.
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However, the absence of the priest is already beginning to be felt in the communities. Palma was also the director of the Neocatechumenal Way, which follows the rules of the founder of that spiritual movement of Catholicism, the Spanish Franciso José Gómez Argüello Wirtz. He dedicated twenty-five years of his ministry to that work in the Diocese of Jinotega.
Why did he leave?
In the communities, the reasons for their departure from the country have not been explained in detail. The parishioners have two versions about it; The first is that, being of Spanish origin, the Ortega regime “admonished him regarding his residence and stay” and the second is that he left because his mother is ill and he asked for a license to be by his side. of the.
In the image, the priest Jesús María Palma, in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the Carlos Rizo neighborhood, in the Santa Gema parish, another of the churches that the priest attended in the city of Jinotega.
“Whatever the reasons, it’s unfortunate because he did a good job for the community. It is a pity, if he was not expelled, we hope for his return », said a community member who has known the religious for ten years.
“He is a charismatic priest, he will no longer be with his community and the parishioners feel very sad and regret that the father has left, because he had won the hearts of the Jinotegan parishioners,” said another Catholic citizen from the area.
Diocese of Jinotega runs out of priests?
On February 12 of this year, Father Damián Muratori, of Italian origin, prayed during the celebration of Holy Mass for the freedom of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, kidnapped by the regime since August 2022 and sentenced to 26 years in prison in February 2022. that year for alleged political crimes.
Muratori had barely finished the religious services, when personnel from the Immigration Directorate arrived in a van to give him an appointment to go to Managua. Since then, no one has had it again and it was only known from a note published by the regime, that they accused him of an alleged sexual assault and for what the Italian justice system supposedly required. He was deported and handed over to the Italian authorities.
Fray Damián Muratori, was the vice postulator for the cause of beatification of Father Odorico D’Andrea and was in charge of the Tepeyac sanctuary in San Rafael del Norte in the Diocese of Jinotega. Ortega’s dictatorial government ordered his expulsion from the country and he would become the first Jinotegan priest, who left his mission due to persecution by the Sandinista regime.
But they have not been the only attacks, in the month of May of this year, they also confiscated the Catholic school of San Sebastián de Yalí and expelled four nuns from the Santa Luisa de Marillac congregation.
A source, under anonymity, confirmed that the regime froze all the accounts of the San Juan Jinotega Cathedral and the parish of San Sebastián, in the municipality of Yalí, and it is expected that the other parishes of that Diocese of the North, run with the same Good luck, because the pattern of persecution is an orientation given from El Carmen, the Managua residence occupied by the dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to financially drown the Catholic Church of Nicaragua.
By: United Voices.
