The priest Edwing Román tells how his life is in exile, how his day to day passes; And he shares his hopes for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, who suffers the fierce persecution by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.
Speaking to ACI Press, the priest who is now a parochial vicar of Santa Agatha in Miami (United States), recalls that on August 3 he turned four years of having left Nicaragua into exile, for being critical of the dictatorship.
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“My plane ticket was for 10 days but due to the direct threats by Rosario Murillo And of an official journalist threatening to imprison me – and after being a victim of a lot of siege, arrests on the roads and assemblies to denigrate – I decided to stay and process my asylum, ”he said.
“Since then I am in the Santa Agatha parish welcomed by the pastor Marcos Somarriba and the community. I have also been supporting neighboring parishes,” says the 65 -year -old priest, ordered December 12, 1990 for the Archdiocese of Managua.
Somarriba recently spoke with National Catholic Register, and expressed concern about persecution against Catholics in Nicaragua and for the announcement of the Trump administration to deport thousands of their Nicaraguan compatriots who have been in the United States for decades.
“My people, the Nicaraguan people, are stunned. We don’t know where to go, what to do, and I think the regime will not be open to this,” said the priest in August. “People disappear, they put people in jail, exile people and don’t let her return to the country,” he added.
Parish Vicar of Santa Agatha in Miami
On August 17, the P. Romanian Agradation In his account of X to the Archbishop of Miami, Mons. Thomas Wenski, for having appointed him parish vicar of Santa Agatha, the church in which Mass Mass. Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua, exiled in 2019, also celebrates.
As Vicar, he explains, the priest supports “in evangelization with parochial groups, animators, I celebrate the sacraments, and help in the attention to faithful in the office and visit the sick.”
“It has been very difficult to adapt, there was always the nostalgia of not having fired my parish, nor the faithful of me, his pastor. Thank God we have found priests and bishops that have opened the doors of their parishes. Bishops who, as good pastors, have heard and open their hearts as Mons has been for me.
The Catholic Church pursued in Nicaragua
When asked about what he knows about the current persecution of the dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo against the Catholic Church in his homeland, Fr. Román emphasizes that “the faithful Catholics do not stop going to Mass, fill the temples during Holy Week, patron saint festivities and on Sunday. People continue to pray and do not lose their hope for better times”.
All this, the priest specifies, despite “to the siege, infiltrations in the parishes, prohibitions so that the prayer of the faithful is not carried out ‘and the priests are required to send the homily to the police barracks to be reviewed. The processions and meetings of prayer groups in the homes are also prohibited”.
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua prohibited more than 16,500 processions and acts of piety in recent years, and has perpetrated 1010 attacks against the Catholic Church.
This is indicated by the seventh delivery of the report Nicaragua: a persecuted church of the lawyer and researcher in exile, Martha Patricia Molina, released on August 27.
Pope Leo XIV and Nicaragua
On Saturday, August 23, Pope León received three bishops from Nicaragua in the Vatican in exile: Mons. Silvio Báez; Mons. Isidoro Mora, Bishop of Siuna; and Mons. Carlos Herrera, Bishop of Jinotega and president of the Nicaraguan Episcopate.
Mons. Báez said in X that he, his bishops and Pope Leo XIV spoke “long about Nicaragua and about the situation of the Church in particular”
The Holy Father, the Prelate said, “encouraged him to move forward with my episcopal ministry and confirmed me as auxiliary bishop of Managua. I appreciate his welcome so fraternal and his hopeful words.”
On the meeting of Bishops and Leo XIV, Fr. Román told ACI Press that “the Pope expressed his closeness with the Nicaraguan people and with the Church. This has undoubtedly been a visit that encourages us a lot. The Pope is knowledgeable of our Latin American reality,” also considering his many years of missionary and bishop in Peru.
How to help church in Nicaragua?
The parish vicar of Santa Agatha told ACI Press that “one day someone told me: ‘Select a benevolent bishop’. That bishop I have already found it” in the archbishop of Miami, who has also received Mons. Báez in good taste.
“I thank many Nicaraguans and people from other nationalities who have welcomed me and becoming part of their families,” added the priest.
On how the faithful can help Catholics in their homeland, the priest replied: “Praying for this Church that pilgrims in Nicaragua, including in the prayer of the faithful in all parishes and that the Catholic media and of good will continue to denounce the injustice that the Nicaraguan people live and the persecution of the Church.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.