«I have asked Monsignor (Silvio) Báez, with the due permission of the ordinary bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, to ordain me by the laying on of hands and consecratory prayer a priest of the Church, because it seems to me that both he and I , we belong to Nicaragua and even more, I personally told Monsignor Silvio, that he represents my bishop Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, who is now unjustly detained”, with those words the deacon and political exile Raul Antonio Vega Gonzalez, of the Diocese of Matagalpa, is grateful that the auxiliary bishop of Managua has allowed him to ordain him as a priest in the United States.
The announcement about this new ordination had been advanced by Monsignor Báez at the mass on April 30. “I am going to be able to ordain a Nicaraguan deacon (…) from the Diocese of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez,” said the bishop, who added that the new religious minister “practically did his diaconal ministry in El Chipote (Directorate of Judicial Assistance, in Managua ) and she is one of the (222 former political prisoners) who came on the plane (on February 9, 2023), and she was already ordained, since November (2022).”
The future priest said in statements to Article 66 that ordination represents “a gift from God.” “Even though there are human forces and powers that wanted to hinder God’s project, they have not succeeded,” he stressed, in relation to the arbitrary imprisonment he suffered from August 19, 2022 to February 9, 2023 by the Nicaraguan regime, Directed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“This ordination is something that I have long awaited and is at the same time a sign of hope for all of us. I am more than sure that the unjust imprisonment that I experienced shaped my life and vocation. Neither the difficulties of life nor the bars of a prison have made my vocation fail, I repeat, it was forged, “he remarked.
The ordination of Deacon Raúl Vega will take place at six in the afternoon on Friday, May 12, at the Co-Cathedral of Saint Thomas More, in Tallahassee, Florida, in the southern United States.
Almost six months imprisoned in “El Chipote”
Raúl Vega was part of the group of religious from Matagalpa whom the Ortega dictatorship imprisoned and sentenced for alleged conspiracy against the homeland, after the assault, on August 19, 2022, on the Episcopal Curia that ended with the kidnapping of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez .
On February 9, both Vega and the other priests, seminarians and laymen were exiled and declared stateless, along with more than 200 former political prisoners, after more than six were held captive in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ) in Managua, known as “El Nuevo Chipote”.
Related news: Deacon of Matagalpa, banished by Ortega, will be ordained a priest in the US by Monsignor Báez
Bishop Álvarez is still in prison. He was sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison for alleged conspiracy against the homeland. On February 9, when 222 political and conscience prisoners were banished, he was transferred to the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary System as punishment for refusing to board the plane bound for Washington. He remains in isolation and since then he has only been allowed one visit from his relatives.
«Ordinating myself in exile does not separate me from my homeland. Today more than ever I feel united to my people, the faith that I have received I owe in large part to my land Nicaragua, so I do not isolate myself from my country or my Diocese, because I continue to belong to the Clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa and to which Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos continues to be ordinary bishop”, concluded the religious, who asked for prayers for him and for the entire Church.
With information from Wilmer Benavides
