On the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the Nicaraguan dictatorship arrested the priest Danny Roberto García, of the Diocese of Matagalpa, whose bishop is the exiled Monsignor Rolando Álvarez.
This arrest also occurred on the eve of the priestly golden anniversary of Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua, who was ordered August 16, 1974.
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According to the Nicaraguan newspaper Mosaicthe arrest occurred on the night of August 15, after the police besieged the priestly houses of the San Juan Bautista parishes, in the municipality of Muy Muy, of which Father García is parish priest; and that of San Ramón Nonato, in the municipality of San Ramón.
Father García was attending the second parish due to the exile of his parish priest, Mons. Ulises René Vega Matamoros, sent to Rome with six other priests on August 7.
After the arrest of Father Danny García, his whereabouts are unknown.
🆘 Another Priest has been kidnapped by the regime in Nicaragua.
Please pray for Father Danny Garcia and the Clergy who have been kidnapped or exiled. pic.twitter.com/4KULkQM2Mt
— Jan 🏴 (@RosaryMum) August 16, 2024
Over the weekend the dictatorship detained two other priests and two lay women, which has contributed to generating a climate of fear among the faithful of the ecclesial movements who have suspended their meetings, since the police remain close to the churches.
New wave of kidnappings?
Martha Patricia Molina, lawyer and researcher in exile who presented the fifth installment of her report on August 15 Nicaragua, A persecuted Church?which accounts for 870 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic Church in the country since 2018, told EWTN Noticias that the regime “intends to completely end” the diocese of Matagalpa.
“This means that despite the silence of the bishops and priests, the dictatorship continues to besiege, kidnap and attack the Nicaraguan Catholic Church,” he continued.
Molina also told EWTN Noticias that “the police are going to kidnap at least 10 priests. Father Dany would be the first and we will wait in the coming weeks for what happens in Matagalpa and Estelí.
Why the hostility of the dictatorship against Matagalpa?
The researcher believes that the dictatorship has strongly attacked the diocese of Matagalpa “because of the hatred they have for the Catholic faith” and because the dictatorship “has not forgotten the figure of the bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez.”
Molina commented that although the bishop has remained silent in exile, “the dictatorship has not managed to completely put an end to the diocese that has been sustained, despite the fact that its bishop is abroad.”
The dictatorship not only detains priests but also “is persecuting the delegates of the Word and has prohibited them, in the Matagalpa area, from celebrating the Word and from visiting the sick to whom they take Communion,” he continued. .
“The threat that the dictatorship makes through the Sandinista police is that it will imprison them if they disobey the order. “It is extreme persecution.”
How to help Nicaragua?
For the researcher, the way to help Nicaragua from abroad is to “continue denouncing the arbitrariness that the regime is committing, for the international community to adopt a unique strategy against this situation (…) because citizens in the country definitely cannot do absolutely nothing because the police and the army have a license and green light to murder, kidnap, exile.”
Regarding the silence of the bishops, Molina considered it “prudential,” but stressed that they must “seek new techniques and new strategies of evangelization.”
“I believe that the bishops should adopt this new strategy because if not the Catholic Church in Nicaragua will be left with fewer priests and those who suffer the most are the lay people, in areas like Matagalpa and Estelí, who cannot confess due to the absence of priests. ”.
Matagalpa and Estelí
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.
Estelí has not had a bishop since mid-2021. Bishop Álvarez was then appointed as Apostolic Administrator, and in his absence Fr. Frutos Valle was appointed as administrator to everythingin charge of looking after diocesan assets.
This priest has also been detained by the dictatorship.
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.