Nicaraguan bishop Rolando Álvarez, held by the police for two weeks in his curia to investigate him for trying to “destabilize” the countrythanked this Thursday for the signs of solidarity, amid tensions between the clergy and the government.
“Thank you for keeping us pending, for remembering us (…) thank you for this great spiritual communion” in which “our strength” resides, the bishop said, in a mass broadcast on Facebook from inside the curia that is surrounded For the police.
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Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, and critic of the government of Daniel Ortega, He has been held in his curia along with a dozen people since last August 4.
His imprisonment occurred days after he denounced the closure by the authorities of five Catholic radio stations and demanded that the government respect religious “freedom”.
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The police announced that The Bishop’s Diocese is being investigated for trying to “organize violent groups” and incite “hate” to “destabilize the State of Nicaragua.” “We are in the hands of God,” said the prelate this Thursday.
“The Lord is among us (…) the God who in each Eucharist overcomes darkness, iniquity, in each Eucharist makes hell tremble that recasts them in the sea of their own evil, there where they cannot harm us”, assured this Thursday.
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The bishop of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez kneeling before Jesús Sacramentado, while he was surrounded by Ortega police, who are besieging his home.
📹Video courtesy, TV Merced: https://t.co/hat8dXGVuG pic.twitter.com/ipbJFXjwyX— @Radiominute790 (@Fredyandradea) August 5, 2022
Earlier he had already said that he has been given “house arrest” and that the authorities are “making their own guesses” about him. The retention of the bishop occurs in the midst of the friction that the church has with the government of Ortega, a 76-year-old guerrilla who has been in power since 2007, protected by three successive re-elections.
The last one occurred in November 2021, with his opponents imprisoned or exiled and in the midst of international questions. The president accuses the bishops of “coup plotters” for supporting the opposition protests that called for his resignation in 2018.
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The church later became a facilitator for the release of imprisoned opponents. Relations have deteriorated. This year there was a closure of Catholic media, including the channel of the Episcopal Conference, and the recent arrest of the priest Óscar Benavidez, for no known reason.
The Missionaries of Charity Association, of the order of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who left the country in July, was also outlawed. In March, the apostolic nuncio, Waldemar Sommertag, who participated in the negotiations between the government and the opposition in 2018 and 2019, had already been expelled.
“They have not received food”
According to the Catholic radio station Diocese Media-Radio Stereo Santa Lucía and the Catholic news agency Aciprensa, Bishop Álvarez is running out of food in the curia.
In a publication made this Wednesday, the station assures that “after 14 days of kidnapping, they have not received food, medicine, clothing, or hygiene supplies.”
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