The Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Managua spoke out this Wednesday in the face of the wave of repression and the State’s intentions to imprison priests for alleged “treason against the country.” In a statement published on their social networks, the bishops emphasized that they will continue to denounce “social structures of sin” and accompany the poorest and weakest Nicaraguans.
“The Church will continue to announce the Gospel, denouncing the social structures of sin, accompanying the people, especially the poor and the weak. The mission of the Church will always cause contradictions in this world where along with the light there is also the darkness of evil”, they sentence.
On May 4, Sandinista deputies who are members of the Commission for Justice and Legal Affairs, and the Commission for Peace, Defense, Governance and Human Rights of the National Assembly discussed, among other matters, that “the religious and directors of organizations of human rights that were involved in the coup adventure” should be tried.
This action corresponds to the hate speech on the part of the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against the religious who have spoken out in the face of crimes against humanity, committed as of the 2018 protests.
The religious pronouncement is published days after Father Harving Padilla of the San Juan Bautista church in Masaya denounced the police siege and former political prisoner Yubrank Suazo was arrested for raising the complaint on his social networks.
“The persecution before Easter was with Toyota Hilux trucks, they were policemen, paramilitaries, who chased me when I was in my vehicle. They never detained me, I saw that they persecuted me, some shouted at me as a coup plotter, murderer, but they never detained me directly to attack me or anything,” said Father Harving Padilla, who has been the victim of police and paramilitary persecution since before Easter.
For their part, the bishops say that “we are concerned about the situation of the country that we love as children of God, as Nicaraguans and as Christians. We unite in prayer so that God transforms hard hearts into sensitive hearts, with love for others, free from feelings that prevent normality that leads to authentic social peace.
Likewise, they emphasize that the Church “is always present in our joys and also in our duels, illnesses, poverty, absences, loneliness, fears and privations. She strengthens us, but her strength is not in human power, which is temporary, nor in material goods, which are ephemeral, but in the power of God”.
Over the weekend, Bishops Monsignor Silvio Báez, who is in exile in Miami, and Monsignor Rolando Álvarez of the Diocese of Matagalpa said in their homilies that the Nicaraguan people cannot get used to “that false normality that fear reigns” and urged the population not to fall “into the temptation of hatred and revenge” despite the constant injustices committed in the country.
“Hate is typical of the weakbecause he who is weak in the capacity to love has to hide in hatred, in arrogance… he needs to hide behind a mask”, continued the bishop from the San Isidro Labrador parish in the municipality of Condega, Estelí.
In their message, the religious who make up the Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Managua asked “that love, forgiveness and mercy prevail in all in the search for the common good, practicing the Christian principles that Maria, a model of the Church and helper of the afflicted continue to intercede for us before Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”.
