In La Prensa, Dec 26, 2023
In recent weeks the dictatorship has jailed a bishop, two seminarians and two priests. Some mentioned Mons. Rolando Álvarez in their prayers.
Priests in the Diocese of Matagalpa, administered by Mons. Rolando Álvarez, are exposed to being arbitrarily abducted if in their celebrations of the Holy Mass they mention or pray for Mons. Álvarez, who remains in jail in the cells of the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary System, better known as La Modelo, warned the lawyer and author of the report Nicaragua A Persecuted Church?, Martha Patricia Molina.
Molina told La Prensa that sources close to the priests have said that there is a prohibition that “you cannot mention in the eucharistic prayer the name of Mons. Álvarez, nor mention the word bishop.” In turn he explained that in all eucharists the prayer is said in any diocese about the local bishop, but “the priests of Matagalpa are prohibited from doing so.”
At the moment of the consecration of the host and wine, the priest noted that Eucharistic Prayer II, which appears in the Roman Canon, says, “Remember, Lord, your Church extended throughout the world; and with the Pope (his name is said), with our bishop (likewise the name of the local bishop is said), and all the pastors who care for your people, lead it to your perfection through love.”
Molina reiterated that it is something “that is always done, this is not something that began in 2018, but rather in all eucharistic prayers the bishop is mentioned, this is done in any part of the world.”
The priests detained in one week
During the year, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo began to implement once again the revolving door, a repressive pattern which consists in abducting, jailing, freeing, and then jailing again the same or other priests. In the second last week of December, prior to and during Christmas, the detention was reported of at least one bishop, two seminarians and two priests.
On December 20th the dictatorship abducted the bishop of the Diocese of Siuna, Mons. Isidoro Mora and seminarians Alester Chávez and Tony Palacio; likewise on December 21st it detained Mons. Óscar Escoto Salgado, the Vicar General; and on December 24th the priest Jader Guido, the second vicar, both from the Diocese of Matagalpa.
In the case of Mons. Isidoro and the two seminarians it is unknown where they are, and the Ortega Police have not issued any statement. This past December 19th Mons. Mora had raised prayers for Mons. Álvarez and stated that the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) were united.
“I would like to express to you the greetings of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, we are always united, for this marvelous Diocese of Matagalpa, praying for Mons. Rolando and for the path of each one of you, we are united in prayer, communion, faith, love and kindness,” he had expressed in his homily in the St. Peter the Apostle Cathedral in Matagalpa.
Meanwhile, Mons. Escoto Salgado, after having been freed was abducted for a second time on December 22nd, when he was forced to leave the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa to be taken to Managua. In Matagalpa the Curia remains strongly besieged by officials of the Ortega Police.
In 2021 Fr. Óscar José Escoto Salgado was named Vicar General of the Diocese of Matagalpa, the nomination was due to the fact that Mons. Mora who was the Vicar, was consecrated a Bishop and took possession of the Diocese of Siuna, in the Nicaraguan Northern Caribbean.
Mons. Escoto was the only one freed when they moved to Managua all the priests of the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa who accompanied Mons. Álvarez, and who were violently captured after a raid that the police carried out in the early morning of August 19, 2022.
In the case of Fr. Guido, he was freed the night of that same day. He was abducted after finishing mass on December 24th in the morning, the father mentioned the intentions of the liturgical rite and said that he was “in prayer for our bishop Mons. Rolando Álvarez, for all the priests, religious of our Diocese.”
Fr. Guido was left in charge of the St. Peter the Apostle Cathedral due to the fact that the first Vicar, Fr. José Luis Díaz Cruz, and the third vicar, Fr. Sadiel Eugarrios Cano, were imprisoned and banished to the United States.
Abductions are “illegal and show `paranoia´
The expert Molina for her part reiterated that “all the priests who pray for him are arrested” and in addition said that the abductions are illegal.
“It is an illegality, they have now fallen into paranoia, there is so much hate that they have of Bishop Álvarez that they do not even want to hear his name, it seems that the integrity, courage and sincerity that Mons. Álvarez has has affected them, despite all the torture that they are practicing on him, they have not been able to make him bend, that bothers them even more,” she said.
She also added that “we find ourselves facing a clergy who are loyal to their bishop and who are praying for him. The anger of the dictatorship is that they want the clergy to be paying homage to the dictator couple, and not be praying for Mons. Álvarez, this is the center of the rage and persecution.”
Along these same lines she indicated that the case of Mons. Mora and the Vicar General “are abductions because the will of a judge is not involved, there is no judicial order, they simply disappear them, they are not providing any information to anyone, so they are under forced disappearance.”
The lawyer and expert in the Administration of Justice, Yader Morazán, explained that although hours later they release the priests after having been driven to a police station and interrogated against their will “does not mean that the crime of `extortive kidnapping for a political purpose´, of which Art. 164 of the Penal Code of Nicaragua speaks, has not been met.”
He then stated that “holding them for more time just makes the punishment worse, but the crime which was already committed goes against them. In addition, the law does not allow for nighttime raids, we are not in the presence of a flagrante delicto, nor is there a judicial order which would `justify it´, and the detentions are only at the scene of the crime to individualize participation and cannot exceed three hours.”
This past November 27th Mons. Álvarez turned 57 years of age, and one day later the Ortega regime through the official communications media exhibited a gallery of photos where the Bishop appeared receiving a family visit and medical attention. The Bishop has now spent 509 days deprived of his liberty.
On February 10th the Bishop was sentenced to 26 years in jail for betrayal of the fatherland, and they accused him of being “the author of crimes of harm to national security, propagation of false news through information and communication technologies, obstruction of functions, aggravated disobedience or disregard for authority.”
“Revolving door” against priests
The expert Molina did not hesitate to point out that the regime is “executing the revolving door mechanism”, to intimidate priests under the context of the brutal repression against the Catholic Church, since it has jailed, freed, and banished priests, and later on, jailed again others.
In fact, the organization Foro Penal of Venezuela says that the concept of the “revolving door” under dictatorships is when a model of selective and systematic repression is established: “some leave and others go in.”
The dictatorship jailed, tried and sentenced priests Óscar Benavides, Ramiro Tijerino, Sadiel Eugarrios, José Díaz and Benito Martínez: also deacon Raúl Vega, seminarians Melkin Centeno and Darvin Leyva. And two hosts of communications media of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Manuel Obando and Wilberto Astola, all accompanied Bishop Álvarez during his captivity in the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa and were among the 222 prisoners banished to the United States.
Afterwards the dictatorship detained principally priests from the Diocese of Matagalpa and Estelí. It banished to Rome on October 18th a total of 12 including priests who the dictatorship accused of fabricated common crimes, including Fr. Manuel Salvador García Rodríguez, José Leonardo Urbina Rodríguez, Jaime Iván Montesinos Sauceda, Fernando Israel Zamora Silva, Osman José Amador Guillén, Julio Ricardo Norori Jiménez.
Also priests Cristóbal Reynaldo Gadea Velásquez, Álvaro José Toledo Amador, Pastor Eugenia Rodríguez Benavidez, Yessner Cipriano Pineda Meneses, Ramón Angulo Reyes and José Ivan Centeno Tercero. All of these priests recently appeared concelebrating a mass in Rome.
[priests banished to Rome below]
Infiltrators and increase in police presence
The expert expressed her concern because “priests and the faithful are exposed to being kidnapped if they pray for Mons. Álvarez. They have to do it in secret.”
The dictatorship knows what is happening in different parishes, according to Molina, because “not just in Matagalpa are there infiltrators which the dictatorship is paying, a minimum of three people, who in the beginning were police, paramilitaries, or members of the Citizen Power Councils (CPCs) or political secretaries who are responsible for monitoring what is happening in the parishes.”
Molina stated that in most cases the people are identified, “the priests and laypeople know who the infiltrator is, the person who just comes to mass to collect information. They pass themselves off as Catholics, because a true Catholic is not out persecuting their brother, nor selling them out for the 200 or 300 córdobas that they get for each eucharist monitored, besides the fact that they bring devices to record, and there are others who monitor social networks, the transmissions of the mass.”
Ivania Álvarez, a former political prisoner and director of the citizen network Urnas Abiertas [Open Ballot Boxes] told this newspaper that after the detention of the Bishop of Siuna “we have received reports about the fact that there has been an increase in police presence at Churches, and at the homes of laypeople in Matagalpa and its municipalities, yes, there is a reactivation of the harassment and detentions. This is a new wave of more political prisoners before the year ends.”