During the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin called on the Ortega dictatorship to respect “freedom of worship” following the Sandinista government’s repression against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
“The Holy See follows with great attention what is happening in Nicaragua and is especially concerned about the measures taken against the personnel and institutions of the Church,” said Parolin.
The religious asked before the UN that the Sandinista regime “adequately guarantee this freedom along with other fundamental rights”, and also announced the Vatican’s willingness to engage in a “respectful and constructive dialogue” with the country’s authorities.
The repression against the Catholic Church gained strength after the outbreak of protests in 2018, when the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference attempted to mediate between the Government of Nicaragua and the opposition.
Related news: Presidents Boric and Arévalo accuse Ortega at the UN of being a “dictator who violates freedoms”
Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo accuse the Catholic Church of supporting the protests against the government, which left more than 300 dead, according to the UN, for which it has been cruel to priests, bishops, nuns and workers of religious institutions, closure of church NGOs and has even made accusations of money laundering and terrorism.
Among the attacks on priests, the kidnapping, detention, conviction and exile of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who is critical of the repression against the people of Nicaragua, stands out; Bishop Silvio Baez, exiled from the dictatorship, the apostolic nuncio Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, and other religious forced to leave the country.
On August 7, the Ortega government expelled seven Nicaraguan priests from the country. The seven priests were part of a group of 13 religious who had been detained by the Nicaraguan Police days before in the city of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, according to the Nicaragua Never Again Collective.
From April 2018 to March 2024, there were at least 73 arbitrary arrests of members of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations, as documented by various human rights organizations.
Related news: Ortega-Murillo dictatorship fears the Catholic Church, that’s why it persecutes it, says exiled priest
For her part, researcher Martha Patricia Molina has documented that Ortega carried out more than 800 attacks on the church from 2018 to July 2024, expelled 150 religious from Nicaragua, closed 420 Christian organizations and 22 religious media outlets, 21 evangelical pastors banished and 52 religious have been stripped of their nationality.
This is the first time that the Vatican has spoken officially before the UN about the serious situation of repression that Nicaragua is experiencing. In the UN General Assembly, the presidents of Chile, Guatemala and El Salvador have also spoken out against the Ortega and Murillo regime.
