The The Catholic Church of Nicaragua began this Sunday the celebrations of Holy Week without processions in the streetsafter the prohibition of the Government that presides over Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.
The Archdiocese of Managua held this Palm Sunday the traditional “Procession of Triumph” with the image of Jesus Christ, also known as “Las Palmas”, with which Holy Week is officially inaugurated, on one side of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the capital Nicaraguan, according to EFE.
(Also read: He is the Colombian judge who has the future of Donald Trump in his hands).
He Government of Nicaragua, through the National Police, prohibited the Church from taking the saints to the streets since February past, when he did not authorize them to celebrate the viacrusis processions during Lent.
The police order was adopted after the president of Nicaragua and Supreme Chief of the National Police, Daniel Ortega, branded priests, bishops, cardinals and Pope Francis as a “mafia”.
The bishop of the Nicaraguan diocese of León and Chinandega (west), René Sócrates Sandigo, explained then that the The police authority only authorized the Stations of the Cross to be carried out internally or in the atrium of the parishes, but not in the streets.
(You can read: Ecuadorians may carry firearms to defend themselves against crime).
They denounce violation of religious freedom
Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes shared the program of activities for Holy Week at the Managua Cathedral in which he confirmed that the processions, including the Penitential Stations of the Cross, will take place on the temple grounds and not on the streets of the capital where thousands of thousands of of people come
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) denounced through its social networks that “the prohibition of Lenten and Holy Week processions in Nicaragua are a flagrant violation of freedom of conscience, religion and freedom of expression.”
“This year, without processions at the national level, Holy Week will be incomplete, mutilated, the body of popular participation will be missing, but in the face of so much repression the fervor of the people must resist and strengthen itself,” said that organization, which predicted that “earlier that later the Nicaraguans will go out again in processions and in freedom”.
(We recommend: The ‘Bukele effect’: the controversial state of exception in force in Honduras).
The Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua has not officially ruled on the ban on processionsalthough ecclesiastical sources have told the local press that the police authorities communicated “that there was no permission for security reasons to do the Stations of the Cross.”
The suspension of relations with the Vatican
He Pope Francis described the Ortega Executive as a “rude dictatorship”one month after the conviction of the Nicaraguan bishop Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to more than 26 years in prison for crimes considered “treason against the homeland”, and after these statements by the Sandinista leader, according to an interview published on March 10.
“With great respect, I have no choice but to think about an imbalance in the person who leads (Ortega). There we have a bishop in prison, a very serious, very capable man. He wanted to give his testimony and did not accept exile,” Francisco asserted. to the Argentine portal Infobae from his residence in Santa Marta, in Vatican City, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his papacy.
(You may be interested: Video: subjects pack explosives at a jewelry store guard in Ecuador).
The Ortega government later reported that “a suspension of diplomatic relations has been proposed between the Vatican State and the Republic of Nicaragua.”
In the middle of last March, The Vatican closed its diplomatic headquarters in Nicaraguaand his charge d’affaires in Managua, Monsignor Marcel Diouf, left the Central American country.
Nicaragua has not had an ambassador to the Holy See since September 21, 2021, when Ortega canceled the appointment of Elliette Ortega Sotomayor, and it only has a counselor minister for negotiations.
Likewise, in March 2022, the Ortega government also expelled the apostolic nuncio, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.
EFE
More news
#Holy #Week #begins #Nicaragua #processions #prohibited #Ortega