The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship wants to silence the voice of the Church

During the last few days, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo kidnapped and banished another seven priests, from the dioceses of Matagalpa and Estelí, headed by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, also banished and denationalized. With them, the number of priests banished in the last two years amounts to 46 and at least 200 more have been forced into exile.

For the Nicaraguan Democratic Concertation (CDN), the kidnapping and banishment of priests and nuns is part of a policy that violates the right to religious freedom that the Ortega Murillo dictatorship has been imposing for several years. Although it is more aggressive against the Catholic Church, it affects the Evangelical and Moravian Church of the Caribbean Coast.

The confrontation is not a coincidence, it goes back in time due to the firm and prophetic attitude that the Catholic hierarchy has maintained. We need only to recall the letter that the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) delivered to Ortega in May 2014, expressing its concerns about the social, institutional, and human rights problems and the threats that some Churches were already receiving.

Since 2018 the Ortega Murillo raised the tone of their hate speech against the Church and some Catholic hierarchy. However, in May and at their request, the bishops played a leading role during the National Dialogue, also accompanying and protecting thousands of citizens protesting in the streets from State violence.

Reprisals didn’t take long to follow. In 2019 pastors with great recognition, among them the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Managua, Monsignor Silvio Báez, were threatened, persecuted, and forced to leave the country. Many churches were surrounded by the police, among them the San Miguel Arcángel church in Masaya, where several mothers of political prisoners were on hunger strike demanding their release.

The attacks continued when, in July 2020 and in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, an attack on the Managua Cathedral destroyed the image of the Blood of Christ, venerated for almost four centuries.

In March 2022, a new escalation provoked the expulsion of the Vatican representative, Monsignor Waldemar Sommertag. Five months later, the police surrounded and then kidnapped Bishop Alvarez, tried him and sentenced him to 26 years in prison for alleged crimes against the homeland, and kept him in prison until February 2024, when he was stripped of his nationality and banished.

In 2023, after Pope Francis called them a rude dictatorship, they broke relations with the Vatican, withdrew the Ambassador, closed the Embassy, and asked the Holy See to close its nunciature in Managua.

In this context, universities, properties, radio stations, and Catholic and Evangelical social and charitable organizations were closed and confiscated. Threats, persecution, and imprisonment of religious leaders increased, forcing at least 200 priests and nuns to flee Nicaragua.

One of the most relevant attacks in 2023 was the confiscation of the Central American University (UCA), the dissolution of the Society of Jesus that administered it, and the expulsion of its priests. This was in addition to the expulsion of the Missionaries of Charity of St. Teresa of Calcutta, the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation, the Daughters of St. Louise de Marillac, and other congregations.

Other religious denominations are also victims of repression. In December 2023, eleven members of the organization Puerta de la Montaña were imprisoned and falsely convicted of money laundering. The Moravian church on the Caribbean Coast is also persecuted.

The violation of religious freedom extends to all citizens. The United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) presented reports denouncing the attacks and persecution against religious denominations and the prohibitions for citizens to practice their beliefs and carry out their activities freely.

For the CDN, the battle that the Ortega-Murillo regime is waging against religious beliefs and freedom constitutes a crime against humanity, because it flagrantly violates a fundamental right. In his totalitarian efforts, Ortega forgets that faith and religious beliefs are one of the fundamental pillars of the population and that the relationship with their pastors runs deep.