Published on: 29 October 2023
DOHI NEWS
Twelve Catholic priests have been released from prison following negotiations between the Vatican and Nicaraguan officials. The priests, arrested in 2022 and 2023 on various charges, were given two choices: indefinite detainment in a Nicaraguan prison, or the revoking of their citizenship and permanent exile. All twelve have gone into exile and will be housed by the Diocese of Rome in Italy.
Those released were:
- José Leonardo Urbina Rodriguez – arrested September 2022
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- Manuel Salvador García Rodríguez – sentenced on June 2022 to two years in prison
- Jaime Iván Montesinos Sauceda – arrested May 2023
- Pastor Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides – arrested May 2023
- Fernando Israel Zamora Silva – arrested July 2023
- Osman José Amador Guillén – arrested September 2023
- Julio Ricardo Norori Jiménez – arrested October 2023
- Cristóbal Reynaldo Gadea Velásquez – arrested October 2023
- Álvaro José Toledo Amador – arrested October 2023
- José Iván Centeno Tercero – arrested October 2023
- Yessner Cipriano Pineda Meneses – arrested October 2023
- Ramón Esteban Angulo Reyes – arrested October 2023
Why is there Christian persecution in Nicaragua?
Over the last five years, the Nicaraguan government has maintained a steady campaign of harassment and persecution against Christian individuals and organizations, predominantly Catholics.
The blatant assault on religious freedom stems from President Daniel Ortega’s desire to portray himself as being “anointed by God,” and therefore “untouchable.”
In 2018, after 10 years of low economic growth and high unemployment, Nicaraguans went to the streets to protest government reforms to the national pension plan. Protestors demanded both democratic reforms and that Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, step down from office.
Given that 60% percent of Nicaraguans are Catholic, Ortega asked the Catholic Church to assist his government in negotiations with the protestors. Many Catholic clergy, however, chose to provide sanctuary to the protestors and even voiced their support for the right of citizens to protest peacefully.
Ortega had expected to receive the Church’s full support. Instead, he got criticism. Ortega made sure his government used brutal force against the protestors and the Catholic clergy. As a result, hundreds of protestors died and government officials conducted violent attacks on churches, intimidated worshippers, detained and imprisoned clergy, threatened deportation to foreign-born priests who have worked in Nicaragua for decades, and harassed Catholic and Protestant institutions, including denying Caritas, the Catholic Church’s primary charitable organization, their tax-exempt status in 2020.
According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church is the only possible institution with “the independence to challenge the human rights abuses and political abuses of the [Nicaraguan] regime.”
In 2021, Ortega won his fourth consecutive term as president of Nicaragua.
