CV NEWS FEED // As many as 12 priests in Nicaragua have been arrested in the latest escalation of persecution against the Catholic Church by President Daniel Ortega’s dictatorial regime.
According to an Aug. 4 report from the Tico Times, Nicaraguan police carried out the strategic arrests over this past weekend in the Matagalpa Diocese, where the famous resistance figure Bishop Rolando Álverez served before he was exiled to Rome.
“Several parishes have been besieged, and at least 12 priests have been arbitrarily detained, some of whom are now missing and in a state of enforced disappearance,” the Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más (Nicaragua Never Again Collective) stated in a communiqué.
The Havana Times reported on Aug. 2 that while the whereabouts of the priests remain unknown, “there are suspicions that they were all taken to the Interdiocesan Seminary of Our Lady of Fatima in Matagalpa, which has been used in several cases for the forced confinement of priests.”
An exiled priest from Nicaragua told OSV News that “the Diocese of Matagalpa practically no longer has any clergy. We’ve been expelled, pressured and forced to flee. Parishes are on their own.”
Continuing, the priest noted that the Church in Nicaragua faces “attacks from all sides,” as the government has not only forcibly disappeared its priests, but frozen its accounts too.
“Their ultimate goal is to exterminate the diocesan church where Monsignor Roalndo is still bishop,” he added.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the last government crackdown in Nicaragua, which took place in early July, targeted the country’s beloved Catholic radio station, Radio María, revoking its legal status.
Since the 2018 protests against proposed social security reforms rocked the country, President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo have ordered numerous brutal crackdowns against the Catholic Church, as well as various civil associations and NGOs, which they claim are acting as “terrorists,” purposely inciting “civil unrest.”
