971 attacks by the Nicaraguan dictatorship against the Catholic Church

The researcher and lawyer Martha Patricia Molina presented the sixth installment of her report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church”, in which she denounces a total of 971 attacks by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president” Rosario Murillo against the Catholic Church in the Central American country in the last six years.

“In this VI installment, 971 attacks against the religious institution are documented. The above is a sign that the attack on religious freedom is perpetuated in Nicaragua,” says the 443-page report, released on December 20.

The new report lists the various types of attacks – such as sieges, prohibitions, repressions of religious people, robberies and desecrations; and confiscations – perpetrated by the dictatorship between April 2018 and December 2024.

According to Molina’s report, the year with the highest number of attacks was 2023, with 321. The year in which the lowest number of attacks was recorded was 2018, with 93. This year 2024 closes with 177 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic church.

The text highlights, among other things, that there are four Catholic bishops who have been banished from Nicaragua: Mons. Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua; Mons. Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of Estelí; Mons. Isidoro Moro, Bishop of Siuna; and the last, expelled on December 13 to Guatemala, is Mons. Carlos Enrique Herrera, Bishop of Jinotega and president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua.

On the other hand, and always according to Molina’s report, the dictatorship has carried out 11,763 prohibitions on activities of popular Catholic piety.

Regarding the attacks against the Church, Molina told EWTN Noticias on December 23 that “this year 2024 we have seen a slight decrease compared to the previous year, 177 this year and more than 320 in 2023, but this does not mean that the attacks against of the Church, by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship have decreased but that the religious and lay people have decided not to denounce.

This, he continues, because “at the time of making complaints, if they do, they receive greater repression, and this is the reason for the decrease” in this last year.

The researcher explained that the most common attacks lately have been “the closures of non-profit organizations, which are the social projects that the Catholic Church carried out in the interior of the country; also the closures of media outlets such as Radio María Nicaragua, as well as the siege and permanent surveillance of religious people.”

Regarding the reasons for the tenacious persecution, Martha Patricia Molina considered that “the objective of the dictatorship continues to be the same, which is to eradicate the Catholic faith of the Nicaraguan people, also for the Church to fall under its own weight, but it is definitely an institution that It has existed for thousands of years and a dictatorship is not going to eradicate it so easily, although it is true that with the harsh blows they are dealing they weaken pastoral work.”

“What the dictatorship intends is to disappear the Catholic faith in the country, but obviously they will not be able to achieve it because it is something that is extremely deeply rooted in us Nicaraguans,” he concluded.