The Catholic bishop of Matagalpa has been arrested by Nicaraguan authorities for allegedly attempting to “assemble violent organisations” in an effort to topple the president, and the Ortega administration has asked police to investigate this claim.
The Sandinista regime’s atrocities and breaches of human rights have drawn the outspoken criticism of Bishop Rolando José Lvarez, who was put under house arrest and threatened with jail.
The Nicaraguan national police accused lvarez 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,” in a press release that was released on August 5.
According to the press release, such activities “have the aim of undermining the State of Nicaragua and targeting the constitutional authority.”
The police force of the Ortega dictatorship said they had already begun an inquiry “to ascertain the criminal liability of the concerned persons.”
“The persons under investigation should stay in their homes,” the statement reads.
Since August 3rd, lvarez has been besieged by several riot police, along with six priests and six laypeople. Since they sought to leave the chancery in Matagalpa on August 5 to celebrate Mass, they have been unable to do so.
On the basis that they haven’t had a valid operating licence since 2003, the Ortega administration also ordered the shutdown of eight Catholic radio stations in the diocese, which will take effect on August 1.
The diocese said that the bishop personally sent the required paperwork to the government regulating body in 2016, but that he never received a response.
These acts of persecution have been condemned by the bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM), bishops’ conferences across the globe, the U.S. State Department, and the European Union.
During a recent homily, lvarez claimed in a video that was shared on social media that he didn’t know why he was under investigation but that the police must “be drawing their own conjectures.”
“We are kept together and assembled here. We continue to have inner strength, inner serenity, and the pleasure that comes from knowing that the Risen One is the one who tells us, “Courage, it is I; do not be frightened,’” the bishop stated.
He also urged the devoted to maintain their trust in Christ and to avoid becoming terrified.
Remember, dearly cherished brothers: Hatred is the destruction of the heart; fear paralyses; despair engulfs itself.
The beautiful and rising Christ, the Christ of the Church, gives us the power and courage to respond to hatred with love, despair with live hope, and fear with strength and bravery.
Then he concluded by saying, “We surrender to the Most Holy Virgin the six priests and the six lay faithful who are being detained with us in our Matagalpa chancery.
We want to bear this burden and renounce ourselves with what little power we have.
Since his 15 years in office, Ortega has been openly antagonistic against the country’s Catholic Church.
He claimed that bishops backed anti-government protests that his administration ruthlessly put down and were thus involved in a plot to overthrow him in 2018.
The bishops have been referred to as “terrorists” and “devils in cassocks” by the president of Nicaragua.
In less than four years, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been the target of 190 attacks and desecrations, including a fire in the Managua Cathedral as well as police harassment and persecution of bishops and priests, according to a report titled “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church? (2018-2022),” compiled by attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory.
The primary switch to the cathedral’s electrical control system was stolen by unidentified thieves on August 6, leaving the building and its surroundings without electricity.