The lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina presented the second installment of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” in which he exposed the hostile situation that the Catholic Church is experiencing in the country, which has worsened so far in 2022.
In the recount, the lawyer pointed out that in the first delivery, which was in May 2022, they had collected 190 hostilities against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, which were executed between April 2018 and May 2022.
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However, for this second report, presented this Wednesday, November 16, the numbers of attacks on the religious institution increased to 206, for a total of 396 hostilities in these four years of repression by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
This report only compiled the attacks against the Church, published by the national and international media, as well as the complaints published on the social networks of the different parishes in the country and the communications from different dioceses such as the Archdiocese of Managua.
Molina explained that the study reflects an “extremely” detailed record of each of the attacks carried out by the Ortega regime. “Each of the sources of information have been exhaustively verified and analyzed from April 2018 and on this occasion to October 2022, in an ascending manner.”
Assaults on the rise since 2018
In the data collected by the researcher, she records that in 2018, 81 aggressions were registered against the Church and its priests, in 2019, 76 attacks, in 2020 58 were registered.
Already in 2021, the attacks against the religious institution there were 54 Y until October of this 2022 there was a descent of 127 hostilitieswhich means that in the months of June and July, August, September and October 2022 there were around 94 attacks.
Regarding the typology, the study grouped the different attacks suffered by religious temples, non-governmental organizations and the religious media, as well as the different attacks such as graffiti and hate messages, criminal proceedings, attacks on lay people.
Noting that Catholic temples suffered 104 desecrations and destruction carried out by people related to the Ortega government, while attacks on priests have been registered 133 and criminal proceedings are 14, while hostilities against lay people are counted 62.
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He also highlighted the recent attacks and deprivation of liberty and condemnation of two priests —Monsignor Leonardo Urbina and the priest Manuel Salvador Garcia—. He also made reference to the kidnapping of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who has been kidnapped for 204 days.
He stressed that the persecution against the Catholic Church is not a recent issue, however, since 2018 there has been a greater number of hostilities “that possibly were not carried out in the past.” For the expert, the attack of the Ortega dictatorship against the Church will not diminish, but will increase at the end of this year due to the apathy of Ortega and Murillo.
