Angelus News | January 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 2

Photos circulated on social media showed Bishop Rolando Álvarez and Bishop Isidoro Mora
celebrating Mass and being greeted by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. | X.COM
prudent, and very serious dialogue, a
responsible and careful dialogue,” the
government statement said.
The release of 19 churchmen — including
Mora and more than a dozen
priests detained during a wave of
detentions over the Christmas period
— provoked reactions of joy among
Nicaraguans in exile, along with statements
of defiance.
“ ‘Get up quickly.’ The chains fell
from his wrists,” Báez said on X, quoting
Acts 12:7.
“With great joy, I thank God that my
brother bishops, priests, and seminarians
are out of prison. Justice has
triumphed. The power of the prayer of
God’s people has been displayed.”
Ambassador Brian A. Nichols, assistant
secretary for Western Hemisphere
Affairs in the U.S. Department of
State, said on X that the regime “expelled
19 unjustly detained Catholic
clergy, including Álvarez.”
“We are reassured to see the release
of these religious leaders. All people
have the right to worship at home and
abroad. We continue to call for the
release of all those unjustly detained
and the restoration of the fundamental
freedoms of the Nicaraguan people,”
Nichols emphasized.
Álvarez has become the face of resistance
in Nicaragua, raising his voice
against the increasing intolerance of
the Sandinista regime, which has subdued
the business community, forced
the free press out of the country, and
attempted to control the Catholic
Church.
The bishop spent more than 500 days
in custody after police arrested him in
August 2022 during a pre-dawn raid
on his diocesan curia, where he had
been holed up protesting the seizure
of Catholic media outlets. In February
2023, he was sentenced to 26 years in
prison on charges of conspiracy and
spreading false information — one day
after he refused to leave the country.
Álvarez refused subsequent attempts
at exiling him — as expulsion or refusing
priests reentry to the country after
traveling abroad became a common
tactic.
“The dictatorship feels safer or more
comfortable with religious people
outside the country than inside the
country,” Arturo McFields Yescas, a
former Nicaraguan diplomat in exile,
told OSV News.
“When they are inside [the country]
they consider them a threat, a danger,
a counterweight to their official
narrative. And when they are outside,
[the regime] feels that they no longer
have that critical voice, or that voice of
truth, which spoke to the people and
people listened to,” he said.
David Agren writes for OSV News
from Mexico City.
What’s next?
The release and exile of Bishop Rolando Álvarez and
18 other churchmen from Nicaragua to Rome was
a welcome surprise for those who have been praying
and pleading for his release.
But the news has done little to relax concerns about violations
against religious freedom in the country, and left the
Catholic Church there in a weakened state.
Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported Jan. 15 that
among those exiled by the Ortega government were two
priests from Álvarez’s Diocese of Matagalpa, who had been
kidnapped by police over the Christmas holidays, later
released, and then again detained and taken to Managua’s
airport to be flown away with the other exiles.
“Matagalpa is left without ecclesiastical authorities,”
tweeted Nicaraguan human rights activist Yader Morazan
in response to the news.
The government continues to threaten priests who speak
out publicly against the Ortega regime with arrest or expulsion.
There are still believed to be several Catholic priests
in custody, and an estimated 15% of Nicaragua’s Catholic
clergy are believed to be in exile.
— Pablo Kay
January 26, 2024 • ANGELUS • 19