The faithful gather for Mass behind the fence of the church as the parochial vicar celebrates Mass in the atrium of Santa Lucía Parish in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Aug. 16, 2022. / Photo credit: Diócesis Media – Radio Stereo Santa LucíaA group of police officers from Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega dictatorship came to a parish on August 16 with the purpose of arresting the pastor, forcing the parochial vicar to celebrate Mass outside the church.
CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, ACI Prensa, visited Santa Luca parish in the Diocese of Matagalpa, where a number of police officers came this morning seeking for the pastor, Father Vicente Martn.
The police came to the church around 5:55 a.m. local time, according to a parishioner who chooses to remain anonymous for fear of his personal safety “and because we don’t know if the phones are tapped,” adding that they had also been there in the afternoon the day before.
“To protect the priest, the parochial vicar, Father Sebastián López, came out and told the police that Father Vicente was not in the church,” the person said.
As a result, the cops remained outside, waiting for the pastor.
The person told to ACI Prensa that at 6:30 a.m., the bells were rung once for Mass, attracting a large number of worshippers.
“The gates to the fencing (enclosing the open area in front of the church) weren’t opened up because if they were, the police would get in” and gain entrance to the church, the person said.
López held Mass on a table set up outside the church, with the congregation sitting behind fences. The police were joined by riot police while they watched.
“There were a lot of people crying, a lot of people praying. Many said ‘you are not alone,’” the person said.
In addition to the two priests of Santa Luca church, the rectory houses nine other people.
Recently, the dictatorship has increased its persecution and intimidation of the Catholic Church.
Over the weekend, three priests were stopped by police from heading to the cathedral in Managua to receive a copy of Our Lady of Fatima’s pilgrim statue. The police searched the pickup truck in which one of the priests was riding and seized the car registration, proof of insurance, and driver’s licence. Another priest was apprehended.
Since August 4, the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando lvarez, has been imprisoned under house arrest inside the chancery alongside five priests, two seminarians, and three lay persons. The chancery is surrounded by police and is being watched from above by drones.
In a press release published Aug. 5, the Nicaraguan national police accused high-ranking authorities of the Catholic Church in Matagalpa — and Álvarez in particular — of “using the communications media and social media” to try to “organise violent groups, inciting them to carry out acts of hatred against the population, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and disorder, disturbing the peace and harmony of the community.”
Such actions have the “purpose of destabilising the State of Nicaragua and attacking the constitutional authorities,” the press release continued.
The Ortega regime’s police force announced it has already started an investigation “in order to determine the criminal responsibility of the people involved.”
The statement adds that “the people under investigation shall remain in their homes.”
Ortega, who has been in power for 15 years, has been openly antagonistic to the country’s Catholic Church. He claimed bishops were involved in an effort to depose him in 2018 because they backed anti-government protests that his administration violently quashed. The president of Nicargua has referred to the bishops as “terrorists” and “devils in cassocks.”
According to the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church? (2018-2022),” compiled by attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been the target of 190 attacks and desecrations in less than four years, including a fire in the Managua Cathedral, as well as police harassment and persecution of bishops and priests.
On August 6, unidentified thieves stole the primary switch of the cathedral’s electrical control system, cutting off electricity to the church and adjacent grounds. The stolen switch has been replaced, and power has been restored.