The Panamanian priest Donaciano Alarcón was expelled from Nicaragua after celebrating the Eucharist at the beginning of Holy Week and is now in Honduras, according to the archbishop of Panama, Monsignor José Domingo Ulloa, who defended the ” religious freedom”.
“We have news that the Panamanian priest Donaciano has been expelled. He was having an experience there with the Claretian Fathers. He had been assigned to Nicaragua. And after the Eucharist [na segunda-feira,
para o início da Semana Santa]they took him and expelled him and now he is in San Pedro Sula”, explained the Panamanian archbishop.
Ulloa added that “after the celebration [da Eucaristia,
Alarcón] he was taken, it is true that he was not hurt, but he was expelled from Nicaraguan territory”.
“These are things that we sometimes don’t understand about those who sometimes hold power and I believe, above all, in religious freedom,” said the archbishop of Panama.
The Panamanian newspaper Panorama Católico quoted Alarcón’s statements to the Catholic Radio Hogar, in Panama, in which he confirmed that he was expelled, but not violently, and denied that he had led a procession.
Relations between the government of Daniel Ortega and the Catholic Church are experiencing moments of great tension, marked by the expulsion and imprisonment of priests, such as the case of the condemnation of Bishop Rolando Álvarez to more than 26 years for “treason against the country”, or the prohibition of religious activities, including processions such as the Via Crucis.
The dictator Ortega called priests, bishops, cardinals and Pope Francis a “mafia”, who had described the Sandinista government as a “rude dictatorship” and pointed out “an imbalance of the person who runs” the Central American country, one of the poorest in the world. continent.
Monsignor Ulloa called for solidarity with the people of Nicaragua, a country plunged into a long crisis that includes violent episodes like the one in April 2018, which left hundreds dead in anti-government demonstrations and caused thousands of Nicaraguans to flee, while hundreds were expatriated by the government amid widespread international condemnation.
And “not just solidarity. Men of faith believe in the power of prayer (…). We rightly ask for the violence of the violent to stop,” said Ulloa.
“We also look at these characters like this with the eyes with which God would look at them, and we ask that sooner or later they can change (…). As human beings, we forget the dimension that we are here in passing and we believe that we are eternal, ”he added.
Alarcón “is part of this community [claretiana]his superiors will be studying whether it is convenient for him to stay [em Honduras] or if you can assign it to any other country in Central America, because it is in the early years of making a better acquaintance of what it is to be a Claretian”, explained Ulloa.
#Panamanian #priest #expelled #Nicaragua #celebrating #Eucharist