In La Prensa, October 25, 2023
The confiscation of the St. Francis of Assisi Institute of the Society of the Order of the Franciscan Friars Minor from the Seraphic Province of Assisi in Nicaragua, after the elimination of their legal status, generated concern about what is going to happen with the El Tepeyac Shrine – where the tomb of Fr. Odorico D´Andrea is located – and the Nicaraguan friars as well as the foreign friars who belong to the order which has been in Nicaragua 58 years.
LA PRENSA learned from ecclesiastical sources that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, just as they have done with other religious congregations, is going to expel the friars and confiscate all their assets.
“They are going to remove the friars, they are going to expel them and the Odorico D´Andrea shrine which is administered by that order runs the risk of being confiscated in San Rafael del Norte,” noted one of the sources under condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
This newspaper tried to contact Mons. Carlos Enrique Herrera, president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN), who belongs to the Order of the Franciscan Friars Minor, nevertheless he did not take our calls.
Herrera related that he approached the Franciscan Order on the advice of his mother, Margarita Gutiérrez, which is why, once he finished his studies as an agronomist, he went to Costa Rica for three months and afterwards to Guatemala to do the novitiate and Franciscan studies.
There are foreign friars who have lived in Nicaragua more than 40 years. This is the case of Friar Antonino Vaccaro, originally from Italy, who six days ago celebrated his 99th birthday. It is known that in Matigúas, Matagalpa, there is a statue which recognizes him as a benefactor of the people for bringing education and evangelization to the neediest communities, in fact he built the high school in San Marcos and founded the Friar Antonino Vaccaro School in the urban area of San Rafael del Norte.
Attorney General will do the transfer of ownership of assets
The dictatorship, through the agreement published by the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB) in the official daily newspaper, La Gaceta, argued that the Order and 16 additional organizations “have not complied with their obligations” due to the fact that according to MIGOB “they did not report for periods from between 1 up to 27 years their Financial Statements in accordance with fiscal periods, with detailed breakdowns of income and expenses, trial balances, detail of donations and their boards of directors.”
It is worth mentioning that this hackneyed argument has been used by Ortega to eliminate dozens of non-governmental human rights organizations, social organizations, and even private universities, as is the recent case of the Central American University (UCA) of the Society of Jesus.
The Franciscan Order of Friars Minor received the legal status which was snatched away from them by the Ortega regime this past Tuesday on July 1, 1965, and, as was expected, in the agreement it also instructed the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) “to carry out the transfer” of the real estate and other assets “into the name of the State of Nicaragua,” as it appears in the second section of the agreement.
The words of the Franciscan Order in Nicaragua
In addition to the St. Francis of Assisi Institute, part of the Franciscan Provincial Educational Project which administers other schools like the Franciscan Lyceum in Managua; the St. Francis of Assisi school in Diriamba, and the St. Francis of Assisi School in Chontales, it is known that the friars also run the El Tepeyac Shrine.
Visitors from different points around the country, in addition to foreigners, go to the El Tepeyac Franciscan Shrine, to see the tomb of the legendary and venerated Priest Odorico D´Andrea, a Franciscan friar from Italy who did his pastoral work in San Rafael del Norte, and whose cause for beatification is before the Holy See.
In the face of the confiscation of the St. Francis of Assisi Institute and what the PGR was ordered to do, concern is growing that the works mentioned, and others might be confiscated by the dictatorship.
The crackdown of Ortega regime
In fact, since July 2021 the dictatorship, through the General Office of Migration and Alien Affairs (DGME), took reprisals against the Italian priest Damián de Cosme Muratori, the Director of the El Tepeyac Shrine, whose migration status as resident was not renewed.
In February 2023 Ortega expelled him from the country, alleging that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) of Italy was looking for him for the crime of sex abuse in that country.
Another one of the attacks of the regime on the Order of Franciscan Friars Minor happened in January 2021, when migration authorities blocked the entry of Salvadoran friar Santos Fabián Mejía to continue his functions, the pastor and superior in the St. Francis of Assisi parish in Juigalpa, Chontales, who had been in Nicaraguan parishes for more than 12 years.
Likewise, on February 16, 2021 the dictatorship denied entry to the Salvadoran Javier Lemus, from the Order of Franciscan Friars Minor, who since March 19, 2018 had been in charge of the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in the Diocese of Matagalpa, which was led by Mons. Rolando Álvarez, current political prisoner of the regime, sentenced to 26 years and 4 months in prison.