Exiled Catholics from Nicaragua thanked Pope Francis for the letter he sent today to the Catholic Church in the Central American country, which they considered a “balm for our spirit” and an important encouragement, in the face of the persecution they suffer from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his ” co-president” Rosario Murillo.
This December 2, Pope Francis sent a letter to the Catholics of Nicaragua, in which he encourages them to be certain that faith and hope “perform miracles.”
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Félix Maradiaga, a Catholic layman from the Diocese of Matagalpa and president of the Nicaraguan Freedom Foundation, expressed his “deepest gratitude to His Holiness Pope Francis for the letter.”
“In the midst of this wave of repression and religious persecution unprecedented in our history, your words of encouragement are a balm for our spirit and a reminder of the transformative force of faith and hope,” Maradiaga told ACI Prensa.
The former presidential candidate and former political prisoner also highlighted that “the pastoral closeness of the Holy Father reaffirms our trust in divine Providence, even when we face trials and challenges that seem insurmountable.”
Maradiaga also highlighted that the closeness of the Pope and the devotion to the Immaculate Conception “fill us with comfort and determination,” in the midst of “a people who, despite the darkness, continue to proclaim the light of the Gospel.”
For Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report Nicaragua A persecuted Church? which accounts for 870 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic Church between 2018 and 2024, Pope Francis’ letter reveals that it “gives follow-up and attention to the serious situation facing Nicaragua.”
“At this moment everything that is written by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua would be a reason for the Sandinista dictatorship to continue expelling bishops and Pope Francis knows that and I feel that that is why he sends us that beautiful message,” continues the expert, in statements to ACI Prensa.
“Our people are Marian and we are currently praying the novena to the Immaculate Conception. Receiving this pastoral letter from Pope Francis on these special dates is a gift from God,” he adds.
Industrial mechanic Pedro Gutiérrez, deported to Guatemala in September of this year, commented to EWTN Noticias that “we Nicaraguans – I know that many people in the world do too – would have liked Pope Francis to be more forceful, stronger, more energetic against this dictatorship, against these criminals, because that is what they are.”
After comparing Pope Francis with Saint John Paul II, who “faced dictators, great tyrants,” Gutiérrez asked the Pontiff “not to remain silent before the injustices that these criminals are committing against the Catholic Church itself.”
“We would like a Pope Francis who defends the Catholic Church, who stands up for the Catholic Church,” he assured.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.