Nicaragua releases and sends a group of clerics to the Vatican, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez

First modification: 01/14/2024 – 23:11Last modification: 01/14/2024 – 23:50

3 min

The Government of Nicaragua released two Catholic bishops, including Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, a strong critic of President Daniel Ortega.

The Presidency of Nicaragua said that the religious traveled after reaching agreements of “good faith and good will” with the Holy See to improve “understanding” with the authorities of the Catholic Church.

“They have already been received by Vatican authorities, in compliance with Agreements of Good Faith and Good Will, which seek to promote understanding and improve communication between the Holy See and Nicaragua, for peace and good,” the Government added in a statement. .

The Government “profoundly” thanked Pope Francis and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, along with their work team “for the very respectful and discreet coordination carried out.”

Álvarez, 57 years old and who had previously preferred prison to exile, was arrested in August 2022 and sentenced in February 2023 to 26 years in prison. The United States and international human rights organizations repeatedly called for his release.

Among those released is also Bishop Isidoro Mora, 53, and more than a dozen priests detained in December.

“We are reassured to see the release of these religious leaders. All people have the right to worship at home and abroad,” US Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols wrote in X.

“We continue to call for the release of all those unjustly detained and the restoration of the fundamental freedoms of the Nicaraguan people,” the US official added.

The relationship between the Church and the Government of Nicaragua deteriorated after Ortega accused priests of supporting the 2018 anti-government protests, which he considered an attempted coup d'état promoted by Washington and which resulted, according to the UN, in more than 300 dead.

Welcomed in Rome

The auxiliary bishop of Managua, exiled in the United States, Silvio Báez, said in a message reproduced on social networks that the clerics “have been welcomed by the Holy See.”

“I want to invite all of you to thank Pope Francis (…) for the effectiveness of Vatican diplomacy,” said Báez, in a Sunday religious service.

Priest Uriel Vallejos, also exiled in the United States, considered that the government “wants to leave Nicaragua without priests.”

“Another plane full of shepherds from the town to exile,” Vallejos wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

Last October, 12 other priests were freed and sent to Rome after an agreement between the Government and the Vatican. The conditions of the release of the religious are unknown.

In December, Pope Francis said he followed “with deep concern” the detention of priests in Nicaragua.

Tense relationship with Church

The former Sandinista guerrilla and now opponent of Ortega Dora María Téllez celebrated the release of the clerics and considered that the Government's measures against the Church will continue.

“They will continue to dismantle the Church. Anyone who bothers them will be imprisoned and then exiled,” said Téllez, who was imprisoned and left the country in February 2023 in a group of 222 prisoners expelled to the United States and stripped of their nationality. .

The situation for the Church worsened during the Christmas and New Year holidays with the wave of arrests of priests released this Sunday along with Álvarez.

The Diplomatic relations between Managua and the Vatican have been on the verge of breaking lAfter in March 2023 the Pope called Ortega's government a “rude dictatorship.”

According to an investigation by lawyer Martha Molina, exiled in the United States, since 2018 there have been 740 attacks against the Church and 176 priests and nuns have been expelled, banished or prohibited from entering the country.

Organizations linked to the Church have been closed, including the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) of Managua.