The lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina affirms that this 2022 was the “most disastrous for the Nicaraguan Catholic Church” upon receiving from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega 140 attacks.
Among the most relevant hostilities, the lawyer highlighted “unfair” criminal proceedings against priests, who were not attached to what the country’s laws mandate.
Related news: Ortega has executed 396 attacks against the Catholic Church in four years of repression
To the onslaught of the dictatorship against bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity, Molina added confiscations, kidnappings, hate speech, impediment to freedom of movement, closure of religious Non-Profit Organizations and the media. religious, deportations, exiles, expulsions, desecrations, robberies, sieges, threats and prohibition to carry out processions.
He also recalled that in 2018 and 2019 there were 81 and 76 hostilities respectively, figures that are beaten every year by the same Ortega regime.
For the researcher, the increase in attacks on the Nicaraguan Catholic Church is due to the fact that the religious authority “continues firm in its faith and principles, preaching the Gospel, which is in itself an announcement and denunciation of the arbitrariness of the powerful in power. The dictatorship has been incessant and does not give respite to the prelates.
At the end of October 2022, Martha Patricia Molina presented the second edition of Nicaragua: a persecuted church?, which registered 96 attacks against the Catholic Church in four years of repression and an end-of-year update reporting a total of 410 assaults.
Related news: US Bishops’ Conference recounts Ortega’s attacks against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua
The expert stressed that since 2018, the Catholic Church of Nicaragua has been experiencing persecution that threatens religious freedom “contemplated in international human rights instruments and the country’s own internal laws.”
To date, the Nicaraguan dictatorship has kidnapped 12 priests, whom it accuses of common crimes or “undermining National integrity.”
The last prelate to be prosecuted was Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of alleged crimes of undermining national integrity and propagation of false news through information and communication technologies, in detriment of the Nicaraguan State and society.
The priest has been kidnapped since August 4 of this year. The Ortega y Murillo regime ordered house arrest, however it is unknown where he is being held.
