The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio Báez, exiled since 2019 due to the persecution and threats of fanatics of the Daniel Ortega regime, called on the members of the Police and the Army to stop “repressing the people” and not to be “accomplices of authoritarian and corrupt rulers.”
“Those who are part of a police force or an Army do not have to be cruel, nor do they have to be at the service of shadowy groups of political and economic power. They too can welcome God in their hearts and find the path of joy if they renounce repressing the people, if they follow their upright conscience and stop being accomplices of authoritarian and corrupt rulers, “said the bishop during his Sunday homily.
For three years, Nicaraguan society has lived a de facto police state and faces a socio-political crisis that has left 355 murdered; a thousand political prisoners, of which 167 remain locked up, and thousands of exiles.
“Renouncing violence is also a concrete expression of faith and a path to joy,” stressed the bishop from the church of Santa Agatha, in Miami, United States.
Work “for the country we long for”
Meanwhile, the Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, He pointed out that the desire for a better country requires Nicaraguans to remove “as a malignant tumor” everything that destroys society and to work so that the institutions of the State are respected.
“We Nicaraguans must ask ourselves, what country should we build? and what paths should we take to achieve it? ” the bishop warned. “If we want to build a nation that is open to development and growth, we must fulfill our duties according to the responsibility of each one and work for that country that we long for, for the institutions, for the union of families, for the service of our neighbor, for solidarity towards those around us, for a peaceful coexistence, for respect for the dignity of every person ”, he added.
The bishop indicated that for the construction of a better society “dishonesty, lies, extortion, false accusations, insults, defamation, caging ideas do not help us.” These types of actions “damage the reputation of others and give rise to false judgments“Therefore, he warned, it is essential that in all human relationships there is solidarity” as a social principle and as a moral virtue.
In the opinion of Monsignor Álvarez, the practice of solidarity in a society is valid “only when its members recognize each other as persons, not as instruments to exploit their work capacity and abandoning them when they no longer serve.” So he recalled that solidarity is also “a moral virtue and not a superficial feeling for the ills of so many people near or far,” he added.
Nicaraguans must “work tirelessly to achieve a country in which relations between its citizens are based on truth, justice, peace and solidarity,” Monsignor Álvarez stressed.
