Daniel’s dictatorship expelled from Nicaragua the Bishop of Jinotega and president of the country’s Episcopal Conference, Mons. Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, who recently criticized an Ortega mayor who interrupted a Mass with loud music in front of the local cathedral .
The Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) expressed its closeness and “fraternal availability” after the expulsion of Bishop Herrera, in a letter published in the website of the institution and addressed to Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua and vice president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN).
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 Latin American bishops expressed their solidarity with Bishop Herrera and said they pray “that this situation is resolved soon and he can return to his homeland.”
They also expressed their pain for “the events that afflict the Church that is pilgrim in Nicaragua” and encouraged the bishops and faithful of the country to continue being “a testimony of fidelity to the Lord who shines throughout the continent.”
According to the Nicaraguan newspaper CSI mosaicBishop Herrera was exiled to Guatemala on Wednesday, November 13 and remains in a residence of the Order of Friars Minor to which he belongs.
ACI Prensa has not been able to independently verify the Franciscan residence where Mons. Herrera would be in Guatemala.
The prelate was kidnapped by the police after participating in a meeting in Managua with the other bishops of the Episcopate of Nicaragua on November 13.
On Sunday, November 10, the Bishop of Jinotega denounced the Ortega mayor of that city, Leónidas Centeno, for interrupting Mass with loud music.
“Before beginning this Eucharist we ask the Lord for forgiveness for our faults and also for those who do not respect the cult. What the mayor and all the municipal authorities are doing is a sacrilege, and I am going to tell them because they know the time of day. Mass,” the prelate indicated that day.
The Mass was broadcast live on the diocese’s Facebook page, which was deactivated shortly before the expulsion from the country of the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN).
“Monsignor Herrera has historically been one of the bishops most committed to justice and Christian solidarity towards those who have no voice, a true example of firmness and integrity,” he noted in his account of X Félix Maradiagaformer presidential candidate and president of the Freedom for Nicaragua Foundation.
Maradiaga considered that the expulsion of Bishop Herrera and the deactivation of the social networks of the diocese of Jinotega constitute “another attack against religious freedom and human dignity in Nicaragua, and demands international attention and condemnation.”
In statements to EWTN Noticias, Maradiaga pointed out that “the Church in Nicaragua is subject to persecution that has practically turned it into a catacomb church; “The few priests who can still exercise their ministry with some freedom are those who have accepted the conditions imposed by the dictatorship, which demands total silence on any issue of the national reality.”
Arturo McFieldsformer Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, denounced in X that the “crime” of the CEN president was “demanding respect for religious service and stopping sacrilege. Religious freedom is a human right. “The exile of dozens of religious people is a crime against humanity.”
“Another Nicaraguan diocese that is left without its bishop. So far there are four dioceses that are without their pastor. Let us continue praying for the Nicaraguan church in the face of this situation of persecution that it is experiencing,” lamented the Nicaraguan priest Erick Díazwho lives in exile in Chicago (United States).
Bishop Herrera is the third Nicaraguan bishop expelled by the Ortega dictatorship this year. In January, Mons. Rolando Álvarez Lagos, Bishop of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of Estelí, were exiled to the Vatican; and Mons. Isidoro Mora, Bishop of Siuna, along with other priests.
A few years ago, in 2019, Bishop Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua and critic of the Ortega dictatorship, was forced to go into exile due to the death threats he received.
According to Mosaico CSI, to date there are already 44 priests expelled from Nicaragua by the dictatorship, which does not cease its fierce persecution against the Catholic Church.
One of the latest actions of the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, has been to prevent priests from accessing hospitals, thus preventing patients from receiving the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
How many Catholic bishops are left in Nicaragua?
With the expulsion of Bishop Herrera, of the nine bishops that Nicaragua has, only five now remain in the country: Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua; Mons. Jorge Solórzano, Bishop of Granada; Mons. Francisco José Tigerino, Bishop of Bluefields; Mons. Sócrates René Sándigo, Bishop of León; and Mons. Marcial Humberto Guzmán, Bishop of Juigalpa.
UPDATED AT 17:52 GMT-5: The content of the letter from the CELAM bishops for the expulsion of Bishop Carlos Herrera from Nicaragua was added.
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.