2023-04-29 01:31:46
In the midst of the repressive escalation against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, the rector of the Virgin Mary of Cuapa Sanctuary, the priest Almer Moncada, announced that the vigil and procession in honor of the 43rd anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin in Cuapa, Chontales, remain “suspended for reasons beyond our control”.
In a brief statement in which he does not explain the reasons that led to the “suspension” of the religious festival, Moncada directs the Catholic faithful to commemorate the anniversary in an “atmosphere of meditation and prayer.”
“On Sunday, May 7, the holy mass will be celebrated at 11:00 AM, as usual. And on May 8, the solemnity of the Virgin of Cuapa at the same time,” says the statement from the rector of the sanctuary .
The cancellation of the vigil and procession to the Virgin of Cuapa occurs amid the harassment of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which in a new attack against the Catholic Church, prohibited Holy Week processions in all the parishes of Nicaragua .
The Ortega Police prohibited the processions of the penitentiary Way of the Cross from mid-February 2023 and later extended the restriction to any expression of popular piety, which meant a severe blow to the Nicaraguan Catholic parishioner, accustomed to living Holy Week with multiple acts of religiosity. on the streets.
The priests complied with the order and canceled national pilgrimages prior to Holy Week, such as that of Our Lord of Esquipulas or the Black Christ, in El Sauce, León. In addition, they asked the faithful to submit to the new conditions, pray and strengthen their faith. They oriented that all the religious acts during the Greater Week would be carried out inside the temples and avoided pronouncing directly on the frontal attacks of the Ortega regime against the Church.
However, that was not enough for the regime to impose its repressive state on the outskirts of several parishes in the country. Dozens of faithful rebelled against the police ban and challenged them in Nindiri, Nandaime, Chinandega and other departments, where young people dressed in tunics and carrying crosses tried to recreate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. This situation that left 21 people kidnapped in Easter 2023.
#Canceled #vigil #procession #Virgin #Cuapa #Chontales