After the exile of seven priests; and after arresting two other priests and two lay women, the Nicaraguan dictatorship canceled the legal personality of Cáritas Matagalpa, the diocese of exiled bishop Rolando Álvarez, and 5 Christian churches.
On Monday, August 12, the official newspaper The Gazette announced the agreements approved by Mará Amelia Coronel Kinloch, Minister of the Ministry of the Interior, with which a total of 15 non-profit organizations are canceled: 6 for having “breached their obligations” and “not reporting for periods between 02 and 13 years its Financial Statements”; and 9 “by voluntary dissolution.”
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In July of this year, lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report Nicaragua: A persecuted Church?explained to ACI Prensa that it is the same dictatorship, through the Ministry of the Interior, that decides not to receive the financial statements when the organizations want to present them, and then argue that as a reason for the cancellation of the legal personality.
In the first group are the Cáritas Diocesana Association of Matagalpa, the Good Samaritan Church Foundation, the Pentecostal Church of God Holy Spirit and Fire Association; and the Times of Change Evangelistic Ministry Association.
Regarding the destination of the properties of these institutions, the official Nicaraguan newspaper indicates that “it will be up to the Attorney General’s Office to carry out the transfer of these in the name of the State of Nicaragua.”
In the second group are the Association of Christian Church Councils “Ark of the Gospel” and the Ministry of the Kingdom of God Association.
The cancellation of the 15 non-profit organizations occurs 5 days after the exile of 7 priests to Rome, including 6 from Matagalpa; and the arrest last weekend of two other priests and two lay women who collaborated in the diocese: one of them, Lesbia Gutiérrez, coordinated one of the Cáritas Matagalpa programs.
According to the newspaper MosaicWith the cancellation of Cáritas Matagalpa, the Urban and Rural Financial Support Program (Proafur), the Agriculture Soil and Water Project (ASA) are also cancelled; and the Strengthening of Livelihoods and capacities in the dry corridor of Nicaragua (FOMIVCAC).
The last Catholic institution canceled by the dictatorship, until before the ministerial agreements of August 12 announced by La Gaceta, was Radio María Nicaragua on July 9.
Matagalpa is the diocese of Mons. Rolando 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.
Walter Sanchez 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.