In his first public Mass celebrated in Seville (Spain), Bishop Rolando Álvarez, exiled in Rome since January of this year, prayed for “beloved Nicaragua” and offered his pectoral cross to Our Lady of Sorrows.
“For me it is a pleasure, a joy and above all a blessing to be celebrating among you this holy Eucharist in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows, in the memory of Our Lady of hope, Our Lady of expectation, of sweet waiting. and I must also say on the eve of the 100 years of canonical foundation of my blessed and beloved diocese of Matagalpa in Nicaragua“said the prelate in his homily.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The Diocese of Matagalpa was founded on December 19, 1924, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI.
“We pray for you in this beautiful town of wonderful people and for our beloved Nicaragua,” added the Bishop of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of Estelí, as seen in a video from 100% Noticias Nicaragua.
In the Nuestra Señora de Las Huertas parish, in Puebla de Los Infantes, Seville, the Nicaraguan bishop recalled in his homily some passages from Pope Francis’ letter to the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers tenacious persecution by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president”, Rosario Murillo.
“Do not forget the loving Providence of the Lord that accompanies us and is the only central guide, precisely in the most difficult moments where it becomes humanly impossible to understand what God wants from us, we are called to not forget his care and mercy “, points out the Holy Father in the text read by Bishop Álvarez.
“Rest assured that faith and hope work miracles. Let us look at the Immaculate Virgin, she is the luminous testimony of this trust, you have always experienced her eternal protection in all your needs and you have shown your gratitude with a very beautiful and spiritually rich religiosity,” adds the Pontiff in the cited text.
Bishop Álvarez also read a passage from the carta In the Heart of the Fatherwhich Pope Francis wrote for the Year of Saint Joseph: “In every circumstance of his life, Joseph knew how to pronounce his ‘fiat’, like Mary at the Annunciation and Jesus in Gethsemane (…) the Gospel tells us that God always manages to save which is important, on the condition that we have the same creative courage of the carpenter of Nazareth, who knew how to transform a problem into an opportunity, always putting trust in Providence first.”
To conclude his homily, the bishop made wishes that “that Mary Our Lady of Hope, Our Lady of Sorrows keeps us expectant before the soon coming of her son, amen.”
The pectoral cross for Our Lady of Sorrows
At the conclusion of the Mass, Bishop Rolando Álvarez offered his pectoral cross, one of the insignia of the bishops of the Catholic Church, to the image of Our Lady of Sorrows.
“I want to make that gesture of love, leaving my breastplate to the Virgin of La Dolorosa, and I would like all my faithful from Matagalpa, the countryside and the city to be able to contemplate this, telling them that from La Puebla de los Infantes I am praying for them,” said the prelate.
“And I am making this gesture of love for them, for the Lord, for the Church, for the Blessed Virgin. I hope that the Brotherhood of Our Lady keeps this pectoral in her hands, in a place where you deem appropriate, on this date that is memorable for us, very memorable,” he highlighted.
Who is Monsignor Rolando Álvarez?
Bishop Rolando Álvarez was forced to remain confined inside his episcopal house since the beginning of August 2022, along with priests, seminarians and a layman.
Two weeks later, when they had almost run out of food, the police broke into the house and kidnapped Mons. Álvarez to Managua, the country’s capital.
In the midst of a questioned process, the dictatorship sentenced him on February 10, 2023 to 26 years and four months in prison, accusing him of “traitor to the country.” Since then, he has been held in jail. The Modelwhere political prisoners are sent.
One day before being sentenced, Bishop Álvarez had refused to get on a plane in which the dictatorship deported more than 200 political prisoners to the United States.
Bishop Rolando Álvarez was finally deported to Rome on January 14, 2024, after mediation by the Vatican, together with the Bishop of Siuna, Bishop Isidoro Mora; other priests and seminarians.
By decision of Pope Francis, Bishop Rolando Álvarez was one of the members of the Synod of Synodality held in October of this year in the Vatican.
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.