2023-07-05 06:33:48
The Catholic Church of Nicaragua has denounced persecution by the government of Daniel Ortega. In the photo, Father Edwin Román, parish priest of a church in Masaya who is now in exile in the United States. (File: 14.11.2019)
The Fraternidad Pobres de Jesucristo joins more than 3,300 social organizations closed by the government of Daniel Ortega, which has forced more than a hundred priests and nuns to leave the country.
The Catholic Church of Nicaragua has denounced persecution by the government of Daniel Ortega. In the photo, Father Edwin Román, parish priest of a church in Masaya who is now in exile in the United States. (File: 14.11.2019)
The departure of the nuns to El Salvador and the closure of the NGO occur after long months of crisis between the Sandinista government and the Catholic Church, one of whose bishops, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, is serving a sentence of 26 years and four months in prison in the Managua Model prison.
Álvarez was sentenced last February, after refusing to be deported from Nicaragua along with 222 “political prisoners” released and sent on a plane to the United States, according to Ortega himself.
Last month, the government reported that it was investigating the Catholic Church for being part of an alleged “money laundering network” in coordination with political opponents, and canceled several bank accounts of parishes and dioceses in different parts of the country.
Ortega has accused the Church of participating in the 2018 social protests, which the government described as “a failed coup.” Last March he ordered the “suspension” of relations with the Vatican and a year earlier he had expelled the apostolic nuncio Valdemar Sommertag from the country, who offered to intercede for the release of “political prisoners”.
gs (efe, ap)
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