CV NEWS FEED // Since a Vatican-brokered deal secured his early release from a 26-year prison sentence earlier this year, Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Alvarez has remained suspiciously silent, prompting speculation that it could be at the pontiff’s behest.
In a May 5 article, the independent Cuban news outlet Havana Times observed that the characteristically outspoken Bishop has been incognito since his January release, further speculating that Pope Francis might be behind it.
Bishop Alvarez recently received the 2024 Libertas Prize of the Principality of Asturias in recognition of his defense against the authoritarian Ortega regime. However, Havana Times pointed out, the Bishop “answered in the same way he has responded since being banished from his country and sent to the Vatican on January 14, 2024 – with complete and utter silence.”
Widely known as a resistance symbol, Bishop Alvarez regularly spoke out against the Ortega dictatorship, condemning its wholesale persecution of the Catholic Church and other human rights violations.
In August 2022, the Ortega regime placed Bishop Alvarez under house arrest at the Matagalpa Curia, and later in Managua, over alleged “destabilising and provocative activities.” Famously, the Cuban news outlet recalled, photos of Bishop Alvarez kneeling in the street with his crozier, blessing the police officer, went viral.
After Bishop Alvarez refused to get on a plane to the United States, along with 221 other priests, deacons, and religious, the Ortega regime sentenced him to 26 years in prison, for alleged “treason.”
In the days leading up to his release in January, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) referred to La Modelo, the prison where the Bishop spent over 500 days, as “Ortega’s Gulag.” The Vatican announced on Jan. 14 that it had successfully negotiated Bishop Alvarez’s release, along with another bishop, 15 priests, and two seminarians.
Bishop Alvarez, Havana Times noted, has remained silent ever since.
“Ortega and Murillo were never able to scare Rolando Alvarez into silence or get him to beg for forgiveness while in prison,” the outlet stated, concluding: “So far, though, it seems like the Pope was able to do what Ortega couldn’t: silence Rolando Alvarez.”
