Nicaraguan priest Aníbal Manzanares denounced that the National Police has prohibited him from leaving his parish, in the municipality of Terrabona, department of Matagalpa (north), amid tensions between the Catholic Church and the government of President Daniel Ortega.
“My good friends and brothers, just notify you that the Police this morning have notified me that I do not have permission to go out, I cannot go out to the streets, to processions, to activities outside the parish church, so I think they are watching me”, said the priest Manzanares, from the San José parish, in a recorded message on Wednesday, and distributed this Thursday on his social networks.
The ecclesiastical community of Terrabona, located about 73 kilometers north of Managua, belongs to the Diocese of Matagalpa whose bishop, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez, celebrates his birthday this Thursday eight days of being besieged by the National Policewhich accuses him —without evidence— of trying to organize “violent groups”.
Along with Álvarez are five other priests, three seminarians, and two laymen, besieged by police in the curia of the Matagalpa Cathedral, which on Wednesday afternoon was prowled by a drone, whose use is restricted in Nicaragua.
This is one of the most tense moments between the Catholic Church and the Nicaraguan Government since the historic image of the Blood of Christ in the Managua Cathedral was burned on July 31, 2020 in an act that Pope Francis described as “ attack”, while the authorities classified it as an accident.
“It is a spiritual struggle”
The complaint by Manzanares, adviser to Álvarez’s youth ministry, was made public eight days after the same priest called Nicaraguan Catholics, especially young people, to unite in prayer for the “persecutions and all those things.” that the Church suffers.
“If we pray, we will defeat the forces of the enemy, because this is not a bodily fight, it is not a human fight, it is a spiritual fight, against evil spirits, against the force of darkness, because the devil is flapping its wings,” Manzanares said. , on the Facebook account of the San José Parish.
“I always ask you for your prayers, and I ask you, young people, please, in your pastorals, to be critical in the face of this situation we are experiencing, painful, where faith and the Church have always asked us to walk the streets, you know that I do not They let me out and it’s like they’re killing me,” insisted the priest.
Relations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church have been marked by friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.
Ortega branded as “terrorists” the Nicaraguan bishops who acted as mediators of a national dialogue that sought a peaceful solution to the political and social crisis that the country has been experiencing since April 2018.
The situation in Nicaragua has worsened after the controversial elections last November in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison.
