In another attack against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo froze the bank account of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) that allowed it to administer the retirement fund for elderly priests over 65 years of age.
The news was announced, on her Twitter account, by the lawyer and religious researcher Martha Patricia Molina, who explained that the national priestly insurance fund is an institution that was created more than 20 years ago, by the CEN, thinking of a retirement fund for priests.
Related news: Ortega orders banks to freeze the personal accounts of Nicaraguan priests
He stressed that the fund is not properly an insurance “because it does not effectively cover health issues or other Social Security issues”, rather “it is intended as a retirement fund.”
“Each priest contributes $150 a year and the institution he serves, be it a parish or some other ecclesial institution, contributes another $150, so that each priest contributes $300 a year,” the lawyer explained.
He also remarked that another way that the retirement fund for priests over 65 years of age is fed is with the Ash Wednesday collection, “in such a way that with the contribution of each priest and the annual collection of Ash Wednesday, the fund exists.”
“From this fund, a pension equivalent to 300 dollars is taken to give those over 75 years of age and $150 is given to those over 65 and that has worked for more than 20 years without any complications, but the latest disastrous measures of the dictatorship against the accounts of the Catholic Church have disabled the fund in such a way that older priests are not being able to collect their pensions and this is one of the most dramatic conditions of the current situation,” he said. Molina severed.
Related news: Dictatorship accuses the Catholic Church of money laundering to justify the freezing of bank accounts
After this new attack, the lawyer described the Ortega dictatorship as “organized criminals and I do not doubt that they will steal the pension fund that for years has been excellently managed by the CEN.”
Article 66 He tried to find out an official version of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, however the authorities of the Episcopal Conference and Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes did not answer the phone calls.
Last June, the Ortega regime ordered to banks to freeze the personal accounts of Nicaraguan priests. The measure against the Catholic Church precedes that of May 27, when the Police charged several dioceses of the religious institution with the crime of money laundering, while formalizing the freezing of their accounts.
Added to these new attacks is the imprisonment of at least four religious, including Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, whom he sentenced to 26 years in prison plus the loss of his nationality.
