This August marks the one year anniversary of the imprisonment of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa by the Ortega regime. His brother bishop Silvio Báez, the auxiliary bishop of Managua, was forced into exile in 2019. He is the author of this letter to his brother bishop on the anniversary of his imprisonment.
By Bishop Silvio José Báez
August 4, 2023 in DIVERGENTES
Dear Brother Rolando José: I send you this message, as a brother and friend, asking the Lord through his mysterious ways which are not our ways (Is 55:9), that he has you feel in your heart at this moment my loving closeness as a brother and that of the great majority of the Nicaragua population who love you so much.
Rolando, dear brother, I have wanted to speak with you as we did the last time, when you called me on the phone from the Curia of Matagalpa at the beginning of your abduction. Your peaceful words still resound in my ears, full of strength and hope. On that occasion, I promised you that I would not leave you alone, that I would support you every day, and that my voice would be your voice. And here I am with you.
Brother, I feel this time of darkness and the suffering you experience as my own, because I know from experience how painful it is for a bishop to see himself forced to be far from his people. I have not ceased to remember you in my prayers, to mention your name, to denounce the injustice that they are committing against you, and to demand your unconditional freedom.
- You are not alone
I want to tell you, Rolando, that you are not alone. Where you are, even though confined and alone, all of us who love you are there with you. The love of your family accompanies you, who suffer your absence in anguish. The people of God accompany you with their love and prayers, those who trusted in your pastoral ministry in Matagalpa and Estelí and the entire Church of Nicaragua. The voices and hearts of so many Nicaraguans accompany you, who love you and admire you and have seen in you and your life a light and a hope for our long-suffering country.
I am also with you, brother. Many things unite us. The love for the land of lakes and volcanos, which saw our birth and which we love unites us; our faith in Jesus Christ, liberator of humanity oppressed by evil and sin unites us; the same apostolic ministry to which the Church has called us as successors to the Apostles unites us; the pain that we feel for our country, abducted and subjected to the irresponsibility, evil and irrationality of an inhumane dictatorship unites us. So many years of friendship also unites us, where we have laughed and cried together, where we reflected seriously so many times, and many other times we prayed full of faith. They were years in which we dared to dream together about a new Nicaragua built on freedom, peace and justice, and about a Church faithful to Jesus Christ, in missionary outreach and on the side of the poor and victims. You and I what we most desired was that our humble word as pastors, inspired in the Gospel of Jesus, might be always a small candle which would illuminate so much darkness and a soothing balm of God which would be able to cure and give hope to our wounded people.
Rolando, you are not alone. Above all, God is with you, whispering into your ear as he did to the great prophets, “Do not be afraid, because I am with you to free you” (Jer 1:8). Wherever there is a prophet, blocked from announcing the Word, there is God, freeing and opening horizons, because “the word of God cannot be chained” (2 Tim 2:9).
Some priests also share with you the unjust isolation and loneliness, who have only wanted to be faithful to Jesus, announcing the truth of God and being on the side of the people who have most suffered. I am sure, Rolando, that in your heart of a just man and good pastor, there is space for them, and that you suffer more for them than for yourself. In your confinement and pain, the consolation and light of God will also shine, which illuminates our nights and frees us from all enslavement.
- Why you are there
Those who, with an insatiable thirst for power and blinded by arrogance and evil, have kept Nicaragua subjugated, they want to show you as the person responsible for inexistant crimes which they themselves have invented. They have struggled to break you, and while not being able to, they have fabricated a case with cynicism and slander, as Herod and Pilate did with Jesus. They have struggled to silence you, and while not being successful, they have subjected you to a farse of a judicial process which not even they believe in, even locking you up unjustly in a prison. They want to deceive us, but they are the ones deceived; they want to condemn you, but they are condemning themselves.
Those of us who love you and know you, dear Rolando, we do know why you are where you are. You are there for being honest, for being a prophet of God, for spreading hope. Your word and your presence make the tyrants uncomfortable, that is why they have locked you up. Your prophetic word stifles them, which has made the freshness of the Gospel of Jesus resound throughout the country. They felt fearful in the face of your capacity to have the people dream of a new society, where the land can be harvested with hope, they can work with dignity, express themselves without fear, move about with freedom and smile in their hearts. They have arrested you, Rolando, because they were afraid of a humble bishop who walked, danced, and sang with simple people. They also trembled when you spoke of justice and truth, when you defended the victims and you raised your voice for mother earth. They felt judged and condemned every time your unforgettable words resounded in their ears, “Respect the fatherland.”
Rolando, brother, you are deprived of your freedom as Jesus, for being a witness to the truth and a prophet of love, for being a good pastor close to the people, for being an honest and free man. Those who have abducted you, will end up being victims of their hardened hearts full of darkness. One day they will have to respond before the justice of men and the tribunal of God. They do not love life, they do not know love, they are afraid of the power of prayer, they do not fear God. You, dear brother, will see the light and will be free. You will give testimony once again of the truth of Jesus and you will continue accompanying as a pastor the path of a crucified people who surely will rise again.
- We demand your freedom
Rolando, dear brother, I want to also tell you that we are fighting for your freedom: denouncing and praying.
We ask for your freedom denouncing. Those of us who know you and love you have not kept quiet, we continue raising our voices so that this injustice, this crime, which they are committing against you, ends very soon. We will not cease to demand your liberation. We will not be quiet until we have you with us once again.
We ask for your freedom above all in prayer. The people of God remember you and pray for you constantly. I do it every Sunday in the Sunday Eucharist. We trust in the word of Jesus who has said to us: “Ask and God will give it to you” (Lk 11:9), and we do not doubt that our Father, the God of life and freedom, will hear our prayer. We have also asked the Church around the world to join our denouncement and our prayer. It comforts us to know that in many dioceses and parishes in the world the people of God are praying for your freedom.
God will act, maybe not in the time and form that we imagine, but God will act, freeing you from the wicked chains that bind you and renovating your vocation as a pastor at the service of your people.
Rolando, I am with you there where you are, to accompany you in your solitude, to whisper my affection as a brother and friend in your ear, to remind you how much Nicaragua loves you and to pray with you. “Our Father, who art in heaven (…) your Kingdom come” (Mt 6:9-10). Amen.