The American newspaper The Washington Post dedicated an editorial to the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí and imprisoned by the Nicaraguan regime, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez. In addition, they reiterate the persecution of the Catholic Church imposed by the presidential couple of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Through the letter they denounced that “the persecution of Bishop Álvarez is part of a systematic campaign of repression against the Nicaraguan Church, whose leaders have often tried to protect pro-democracy activists and mediate between them and the Ortega regime. An estimated 50 religious leaders have fled the country since nationwide protests, and a government retaliation, in 2018,” the North American media highlights.
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The Washington Post notes that history “records many cases in which religious leaders, including those of the Roman Catholic Church, have resisted abuses of temporal authority and have been persecuted for it. Yet not since communist Hungary tortured and imprisoned Cardinal József Mindszenty early in the Cold War has a dictatorship brought down a single cleric with anything like the ferocity with which Ortega is attacking Bishop Álvarez.”
The Bishop of Matagalpa is one of the most critical voices against the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship, the binomial that controls the strings of power in Nicaragua, a country mired in a sociopolitical, economic, and human rights crisis since 2018.
After more than a month and a half incommunicado, relatives of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, were able to visit him on the afternoon of this Saturday, March 25. The meeting took place in the Jorge Navarro National Penitentiary System, known as “La Modelo”, where the prelate is being held captive.
In the photographs it can be seen that the bishop is thin, has very marked circles under his eyes, his skin tone is yellowish and his face looks emaciated, but he looks strong and in good spirits when he answered the questions of the propagandist Juan Cortés.
The newspaper also sees positive, but not effective, the position of the Holy See and Pope Francis that, despite his recent denunciation of Nicaragua as “a communist dictatorship in 1917 or a Hitlerian one in 1935”, the Ortega regime suspended diplomatic relations with the Vatican and continues “continues to enjoy the support of its own police and army, as well as Cuba, Venezuela and Russia.”
The Nicaraguan dictatorship has been merciless against the Catholic Church since 2022, closing Catholic radio stations, threatening religious people to force them into exile, closing organizations belonging to the Church and prohibiting processions of national importance. He has branded priests and bishops “diabolical” and “traitors.”
