Experts explain why the Nicaraguan dictatorship banishes priests from the Catholic Church

Two experts explain the reasons behind the kidnapping and banishment of Catholic priests by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua, and highlight why the Central American country’s regime is intensifying these actions at this time.

In recent days and since July 26, the Nicaraguan dictatorship kidnapped at least 9 priests, who were sent to the Our Lady of Fátima Interdiocesan Seminary in the country’s capital, Managua. Of these, seven were banished to Rome.

Emilio Blasco, director of Center for Global Affairs from the University of Navarra (Spain), declared to EWTN Noticias that “all the work that the government is doing to persecute any hint of opposition, not only political but also cultural, religious, shows that the government’s will is to sustain itself and to separate, sometimes eliminate, people who think differently.”

For Blasco, Daniel Ortega persecutes the Catholic Church, because “he perceives it as a stronghold of opposition, of people who think for themselves and that he cannot dominate as he dominates other spheres.”

This, furthermore, is aggravated since in Nicaragua “the strength of the Catholic Church is still great, and one way to control everything is to go against the Church, eliminating those voices that (Ortega) considers most critical.”

For the Spanish analyst, these exiles occur in response to “what is happening in Venezuela: international opinion, the attention of the media in Latin America is focused on Venezuela and that means that perhaps (Ortega) can feel with freer hands to carry out these arrests in Nicaragua.”

Miguel Mendoza, a Nicaraguan journalist in exile in the United States, told EWTN Noticias that what the Nicaraguan dictatorship seeks is to “end a religion that is so important for all Nicaraguans.”

Discomfort of the dictatorship and an agreement like China’s with the Vatican

Mendoza also commented that these days “there is speculation that the dictatorship was uncomfortable, believing that from Rome, Bishop Rolando Álvarez continued to give guidance to these priests. (Matagalpa) is the diocese that is seen as totally adversarial. That is why it has no other meaning since the priests are silenced under the threat of being kidnapped.”

Matagalpa is the diocese of Mons. Álvarez, bishop, defender of human rights and critic of the dictatorship, who was arrested, confined to his home and sentenced to 26 years in prison in a questioned judicial process. He was deported in January of this year to Rome, where he now lives in exile.

The journalist also denounced that these days “Sunday and weekday Masses are not carried out peacefully but there are police, there is harassment and repression.”

“It is also believed that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are trying to pressure the Vatican to (…) have a model equal to that of China” regarding the election of new bishops, as established in the provisional agreement signed in 2018, renewed in 2020 and 2022 between the Holy See and the Vatican.

“It is presumed that this is the tactic” of the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship to achieve “bishops related to their politics because there are also priests close to the regime,” Mendoza said.

According to researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report Nicaragua: A persecuted Church?the priests detained by the dictatorship in recent days are: Mons. Ulises Vega Matamoros, Mons. Edgar Sacasa Sierra, Fr. Víctor Godoy, Fr. Jairo Pravia Flores, Fr. Marlon Velásquez, Fr. Harvin Torrez and Fr. Raúl Villegas , all of them from the clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa.

Completing the list are Fray Silvio Romero, from the Diocese of Juigalpa; and Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón, administrator to everything of the Diocese of Estelí, that is, in charge of the administration of material goods in the absence of the Apostolic Administrator, Mons. Rolando Álvarez.

Vatican News in Spanish, the Vatican’s media outlet, indicates in a note the names of the priests who arrived in Rome on August 7: Ulises Vega, Edgar Sacasa, Víctor Godoy, Jairo Pravia, Silvio Romero, Harvin Torres, and Marlon Velázquez.