A Panamanian Catholic priest denounced this Tuesday that he was expelled from Nicaragua and taken to the border with Honduras, accused of having carried out an unauthorized Holy Week procession.
“They put me in a patrol with two policemen and took me to the border [con Honduras] and there they made me cross and they told me: you are out of the country and you cannot return anymore,” said Claretian priest Donaciano Alarcón, in an interview with Radio Hogar of the Archdiocese of Panama.
(You may be interested: Not even the saints can go out on the streets in Nicaragua: Ortega’s prohibitions)
alarcon he was a parish priest for a year and a half in the town of Cusmapanear the border with Honduras, and recounted that He was arrested on Monday by the police. after officiating a mass.
The Nicaraguan authorities have not reported on this event, which occurred in the midst of tensions between the government of Daniel Ortega and the Church, while Managua’s diplomatic relations with the Vatican are on the brink of breaking.
(Also read: Pope Francis issues a statement on the regime of Daniel Ortega)
Managua has expelled other Catholic priests before and Bishop Rolando Álvarez was sentenced in February to 26 years in prison.
Nicaraguan opposition media have stated that the government prohibited the processions in this Holy Week, which are a tradition in the country, although no standard has been published in the official gazette. The superior of the Claretians for Central America, Ismael Montero, affirmed that Alarcón “was being followed” for days.
“Taking advantage of He came from mass and was away from home, they took advantage of arresting him and putting him at the border with Honduras“, Montero indicated to the same station. Alarcón assured that the police accused him of “arousing the people” and of carrying out “via crucis and processions”, charges that he denied.
“I did not have a procession, because they were prohibited, and I was the first to tell people that there would be no procession,” said Alarcón. The religious stated that The situation in Nicaragua is “uncomfortable because you can’t talk about anything”. “I have never talked about politics because it does not interest me, but the issue of justice“, he added.
(Also: Francisco: between diplomatic revival and lack of forcefulness)
Diplomatic relations between Managua and the Vatican were on the verge of breaking on March 12, when the Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a statement that “a suspension of diplomatic relations has been proposed“with that European state.
This statement came days after, in an interview with the Argentine portal Infobae, Pope Francis described the Ortega government as a “rude dictatorship” and that the leftist president suffers from an “imbalance.”
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