Bishop Rolando Álvarez along with 18 other representatives of the Catholic Church of Nicaragua arrived at the Vatican on Sunday afternoon, after having been released from prison in their country, as confirmed by the official agency Vatican News. The government of Nicaragua reiterated the information, pointing out in a statement that “the trip to the Vatican of two bishops, fifteen priests and two seminarians” was completed thanks to the “very respectful and discreet coordination carried out” through Pope Francis and the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.
The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio Báez, exiled in Miami since 2019, had earlier communicated the news of the release and banishment at a mass in the church of Santa Agatha.
The release of the Nicaraguan religious occurs 14 days after Pope Francis, after praying the first Angelus of the year, expressed his “concern” about the detention of Catholic priests in Nicaragua, and asked that “the path of dialogue be sought.” to overcome problems.
Since the massive protests in 2018 against the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president Rosa Murillo, the repression of political opponents in Nicaragua has been worsening in recent years. Members of the Catholic Church have been especially persecuted for their critical speech against the regime, which has denounced on numerous occasions the human rights violations committed by police and paramilitaries during their response to social protests.
The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has suffered 740 attacks by the government since 2018, according to the analyzes of lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report Nicaragua: a persecuted church? . “In 2023 alone, 275 attacks were carried out. We can describe this last year as the year with the most attacks against the Church during the recent five-year period,” Molina told EL PAÍS. Attacks that reached their climax during Holy Week in 2023, in which processions were prohibited and priests and parishioners were persecuted.
In addition to the Vatican, the United States and the UN had also recently warned about the situation of Nicaraguan religious. Nine days ago, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for Central America asked the Sandinista Government to report on the whereabouts of Bishop Isidoro Mora, who was detained on December 20 amid a wave of arrests of Catholic religious. . Almost three weeks ago, the United States demanded Ortega “immediately” release Bishop Rolando Álvarez, 57.
Rolando Álvarez, bishop of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, was the most critical voice of the Catholic Church that still remained in Nicaragua. Since August 2022 he had been deprived of liberty and in February of last year he was transferred to the Modelo prison in Managua with a sentence of 26 years and 4 months in prison, after having refused to be deported to the United States along with 222 released opponents. As part of the sentence, he also had his Nicaraguan nationality revoked.
The main person in charge of the US State Department for Latin America, Brian Nichols, expressed this Sunday his tranquility about the release of Álvarez. Likewise, the diplomat announced that they will continue to call for the release of all those “unjustly” detained and the restoration of the fundamental freedoms of the Nicaraguan people.
Several Nicaraguan opposition organizations rejected the “exile” of the religious. But they also hailed the decision as an achievement of the Vatican’s management and the pressure of the international community and the Nicaraguan democratic opposition. For the Self-convoked Nicaraguan Union, the release “is an important step in the fight for democracy in Nicaragua” and they announced that they will continue “fighting until all political prisoners are released and the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship falls.”
These releases join another 12 priests who had already been sent to the Vatican on October 18, 2023 following an agreement with the Holy See. In total, there are 37 priests released from prison and sent out of Nicaragua in the last year, not including seminarians or those who have left the country for security reasons.
