In light of the wave of attacks against the Church in the last days of 2023 which involved the jailing of a bishop, fourteen priests and seminarians, this letter urges prompt action by the Bishops Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean. At the end of the letter appear the list of the Bishops Conferences, as well as other organizations and individuals who signed in support of the letter. Many of the individuals are former political prisoners of the Ortega regime.
Letter to Bishops Conferences in Latin American and Caribbean
Sent by CALIDH (Interamerican Legal Assistance Center on Human Rights)
Buenos Aires, December 30, 2023
Monseñor
Lizardo Estada
Secretary General
Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council
To the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean
REF: Urgent call to CELAM and the Episcopal
Conferences for the Church in Nicaragua
Monseñor Estrada:
We write you most attentively and through you the Episcopal Conferences in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the name of the Interamerican Legal Assistance Center on Human Rights (CALIDH), a human rights movement composed of Nicaraguans in exile and brothers and sisters from different nationalities in solidarity with the situation in Nicaragua. CALIDH is a lay and non-confessional organization. Since 2022 the Center, based in Argentina, exercises a mandate of follow-up on the serious human rights violations in Nicaragua.
Monseñor, Nicaragua is experiencing the worst moment in its recent history since the return of democracy in 1990. The State of Nicaragua, starting in 2018, has unleashed a systematic and generalized wave of violence against the Nicaraguan population, an aggression which has been characterized as crimes against humanity. Likewise, the State has carried out direct attacks against specific sectors of society, including the Church. Brother and sister Catholics and their ministers are undergoing a persecution which has no precedent in the history of the country. The religious persecution, which also is a crime against humanity in accordance with international law, is more and more aggressive and indiscriminate.
In these recent days and above all in the last forty-eight hours, the State has executed a repressive escalation within the framework of the persecution against the Church which has resulted in the imprisonment of fourteen religious, among them a bishop, priests and seminarians. Mr. Secretary: The Latin American and Caribbean Church must and can unite in one voice to demand from the regime of Managua the release of the unjustly abducted ministers of the Catholic faith. The Conference, inspired by the words and example of the Martyr of the Americas, Mons. Óscar Arnulfo Romero, can shout:
“I beg you, I plead with you, I order you in the name of God, stop the Repression!”
Monseñor, the Church cannot be left without a voice, when in a generalized way brother and sister Catholics in Nicaragua are being silenced. The regime, with these detentions and the other attacks suffered by the Church, seeks in general to disappear and dismantle the last organized space which is left in the country, which, in addition, has authority derived from the faith of millions of Nicaraguans. Specifically, within the framework of the wave of the last hours which we denounce before you, the State wants the entire Church of Nicaragua to not make statements through their Episcopal Conference, terrorizing the bishops so that they do not take such a transcendental step.
The voice of the bishops in the Episcopal Conference is the only form capable of confronting the regime from within Nicaragua because of the persecution which the Church is experiencing. For that reason, the State has detained several vicars of the dioceses with the purpose that the respective bishop might feel that he is the next in the order of abductions perpetrated by the police and other armed civilian agents who act under the protection of the authorities.
Mr. Secretary, through you we ask all the Episcopal Conferences (which is why we ask you to send this letter to them) that the Latin American Church might reflect expeditiously on the ministers detained through the affliction of the prisons of Paul in Imperial Rome, inspired by Hebrews 13:3:
“Remember the prisoners, as if you yourselves were in jail with them, and also those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were those who suffer.”
We beseech your prompt, timely and forceful intervention from CELAM and each Episcopal Conference about the detained bishops, priests and seminarians. The Church of Nicaragua urgently needs the support of their peers.
Sincerely,
Dr. Danny Ramírez Ayérdiz, Executive Secretary CALIDH
Dr. Yonarqui Martínez, Human Rights Defender
Dr. Jazmin Sánchez
Advocacy Director CALIDH
