CV NEWS FEED // The International Republican Institute (IRI) recently honored renowned Nicaraguan Catholic Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos with its highest recognition for his “unwavering commitment to religious freedom.”
Bishop Alvarez has been widely regarded in Nicaragua as a resistance symbol since 2022 due to his relentless public criticism of the Ortega regime and subsequent refusal to vacate the country when government authorities attempted to banish him to the US.
According to an IRI news release following the event, Fr. Benito Martínez received the John S. McCain Freedom Award from IRI Board Member Marco Rubio on behalf of Álvarez, who has remained in Rome since a highly secretive Vatican-brokered deal secured his release from what would have been a 26-year prison sentence.
“Father Martínez thanked the International Republican Institute for its advocacy in the fight for freedom and accepted the award on behalf of all Nicaraguans who desire to live in a free and democratic society,” the release stated.
“Every human being has dignity and certain inalienable rights endowed by our creator,” Rubio told attendees of the event, adding: “The concept of freedom and liberty is not a political one, but a spiritual one.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Álvarez had spent over 500 days in solitary confinement at one of the most notorious prisons in Latin America, La Modelo, after he refused to board a plane with 222 other political dissidents to the US.
At the time of his arrest, as Catholic News Agency reported in July 2023, Álvarez expressed to Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio José Báez that “he would not leave Nicaragua for any reason unless the Pope ordered him to do so.”
“The United States prevailed in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, through the principle of peace through strength, building allies and partners, and a commitment to individual and religious liberty,” IRI Chairman Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, stated in his speech at the award ceremony earlier this month.
If the US truly supports democracy and freedom, Sullivan declared: “it is imperative that, like President Reagan did, we prioritize religious liberty when we’re talking about human rights.”