On Saturday, Nicaraguan National Police surrounded Managua Cathedral to obstruct a prayer "for the Church and for Nicaragua."
For the First Time in 30 Years, a Procession Has Been Halted -- Priest Arrested
(Managua) The anti-Church measures in Nicaragua are becoming open repression. Nevertheless, Pope Francis is silent on the persecution, as it showed itself this weekend.
Events in the Central American country are unfolding. In Managua, the police had surrounded the cathedral. In various parts of the country, the processions for the feast of the Assumption of Mary had been banned. The prelude was the ban on a procession planned for August 13. An unprecedented event in the history of the country since the end of the Sandinista revolutionary government in 1990. The Sandinista regime cited "a threat to internal security" as the reason.
With this justification, the ban on a large procession "for the Church and for Nicaragua" was first imposed. This procession had been planned for August 13 at the end of the Marian Congress. In the procession, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was to be carried through the streets of Managua.
The police extensively monitored the area around the congress and obstructed the faithful from reaching the congress grounds. Buses and cars were stopped, the people checked and partly prevented from continuing their journey. The Archdiocese of Managua, because of the ban on the procession, called on the faithful to come to the cathedral after the end of the Marian Congress to pray for the aforementioned petitions.
Sandinista hostility to the Church: "Demons in cassocks"
Head of state and government Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo accuse the church of planning a coup d'état in 2018 to put an end to Sandinista rule. In reality, the ecclesiastical hierarchy had sought mediation between the socialist regime and the people who had gathered in the streets for mass protests. Ortega brutally suppressed the protests. Hundreds of people were killed. Since then, the Church has been subjected to numerous harassments and has been openly persecuted for months. The reason for this is that Ortega and Murillo are convinced that the critics of the regime gather in the protection of the Church, which is why they see in every procession and every prayer an anti-regime rally.
On Twitter, a user wrote on the news that the police had surrounded the cathedral of Managua:
"If it is an attack to attend Mass, FAITH is the only thing this dictatorship is afraid of."
Ortega's wife, who has served as vice president since 2017, attacks the Church almost daily, calling priests "imposters" and "manipulators."
Ortega himself described the country's bishops as "demons with cassocks." In the past two months alone, the Ortega-Murillo couple has closed eleven radio stations and five television stations. Most of them were under Church sponsorship. Most recently, the regime closed Radio Darío in the city of León last Friday.
Bishop Álvarez of Matagalpa is held "hostage" by the police in his Curia, as his confrere Msgr. Baéz criticized. Álvarez criticized the government's measures on Twitter:
"They have shut down all our radio stations, but they will not silence the Word of God."
Since August 4th, the police have been besieging the diocesan curia of Matagalpa. Since then, the bishop has been held in it together with several priests, some seminarians and two laymen. As he continues his criticism via social networks, the regime has since initiated criminal proceedings against him for allegedly "organizing violent groups" and "inciting hatred."
In various parts of the country, Monday, on the feast of the Assumption, the police prohibited priests from carrying out traditional processions or other activities outside the churches.
Yesterday, the country's Episcopal Conference also criticised the arrest of priests without being accused of anything. [Reminds one of the treatment the FFI got from Bergoglio and Volpe.] For example, the diocese of Siuna in the north of the country announced the arrest of Don Oscar Benavidez of the Holy Spirit Church in Mulukukú. The priest had been arrested on Sunday afternoon "without giving reasons or motives". The diocese demanded information from the state about the whereabouts of the priest. However, the police refused to confirm the arrest themselves.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights CENDIH announced that the priest was "taken out of his vehicle and taken away in a patrol car in an unknown direction," and called for "an end to the persecution of the Church and its clergy."
Mulukukú was a center of anti-Sandinista resistance in the first Ortega dictatorship in the 80s.
"No freedom of religion, no freedom of expression"
Nicaraguan priest Edwin Román, who lives in exile in the U.S., told VOA News that in Nicaragua there is "no freedom of religion, no freedom of expression, no freedom of movement."
Bishop Silvio José Báez, who expressed his solidarity with Bishop Álvarez on Twitter, also lives in exile in the USA today. According to official language regulations, the regime critic had asked Pope Francis in 2019 to release him from his office as auxiliary bishop of Managua. In reality, Francis had presented his head to the regime by calling him – "for his safety" – to the Vatican. Initially, it was said that he would be given a new task there until his return to Nicaragua would be possible again. But that was not the case. Bishop Báez was not given a task in Rome out of consideration for the Ortega regime. Instead, the Carmelite was assigned a Jesuit community in Florida as his place of residence. [Imagine the stench of iniquity?]
For years, the Church has been in a field of tension that weighs heavily on it. While the Church in Nicaragua is being persecuted more and more brutally, Pope Francis is silent on this while dictator Ortega calls Francis his "friend." Neither on Sunday nor yesterday did Francis comment on the events in Nicaragua at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square.
The "friendship" could be captured in pictures last Saturday, when the entrances to the Marian Congress in Managua were monitored by the police and the cathedral was surrounded by national police. Nevertheless, several thousand Nicaraguans managed to reach the cathedral and pray there "for the Church and for Nicaragua".
The area around the cathedral, located in the center of the capital, was the scene of large mass protests against the Ortega regime in 2018. Since then, public rallies have been suppressed by the state. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua and Primate of Nicaragua, said on August 13th, apparently addressing the government: "Lord forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Characteristic of the repressive climate in Nicaragua, the mask requirement still enforced in the summer of 2022 due to an alleged corona threat that applies even to outdoor gatherings.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Twitter (Screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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