The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, listed this Sunday, during the resurrection mass, the stones on the road to the liberation of the peoples: the cruelty of tyrants, the indifference of the egoists, the envy among the leaders and the hopelessness of the people tired of suffering.
The Carmelite religious, exiled since 2019 on the advice of Pope Francis due to threats from Ortega fanatics, delivered his homily broadcast through social networks from the Santa Agatha parish in Miami, Florida. His message comes while the Nicaraguan Catholic Church is viciously persecuted by the Daniel Ortega regime, which considers the Vatican a “mafia.”
The Nicaraguan dictatorship prohibited processions on these days of Holy Week—restricting them to church atriums or inside temples—in an evident sign of religious persecution in the country, whose human rights situation has deteriorated hand in hand of the Ortega-Murillo family.
The situation was described as “particular” by Pope Francis who prayed for Nicaragua in the blessing “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world”), transmitted from San Pedro Square. On Wednesday, April 5, Vice President Rosario Murillo, co-governor and wife of Daniel Ortega, invoked the “true God” to justify the repression.
“Today there are huge stones that prevent us from living and being free. On the path of life we are blocked by the stones of discouragement, distrust, fear and sin,” Báez said.
Dictatorship adds more political prisoners
According to the Blue and White monitoring, the repressive operations have left 17 captured, in addition to the 36 political prisoners that remained after the exile of 222 last February, when the dictatorship decided to expel them to the United States, after the courts of justice They were declared “traitors of the homeland.”
One of the prisoners of conscience is precisely the Bishop of Matagalpa and administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, Rolando Álvarez, sentenced last February to 26 years and four months in prison, one day after he refused to accept Ortega’s exile. This hierarch is known for his pastoral work in peasant communities, his commitment to democracy and the denunciation of human rights abuses.
The regime has been denounced by international organizations, such as the Organization of American States and the United Nations, for its responsibility in the repression that left 355 murdered and more than 2,000 injured in 2018. According to reports, “crimes against humanity” were committed. , which has been rejected by the ruling party, which described without evidence the protests attacked by the State as an “attempted coup.”
“God free us from the dictatorship of mental rigidity and pride”
Báez insisted that “even the heaviest stones can be removed,” referring to one of the lessons Mary Magdalene learned as she approaches Jesus’ tomb on the day of the resurrection. Her other teaching for her that day was not to cling to her own interpretations, to look for others and to open up to the novelty of what was happening.
For this reason, the Catholic leader criticizes those who presume to know everything and have the solution for everything. “God free us from the dictatorship of mental rigidity and the arrogance of those who try to impose their little truth as absolute truth. When we search together, we open ourselves to God’s surprises and take the first step towards Easter, towards the encounter with the one who is the truth. No one has all the solutions and only together can we find reasonable paths. Let’s learn to say I don’t know and to listen to each other,” he added.
Among the concelebrants of the mass in the Santa Agatha parish was the priest Edwin Román, ex-parish priest of the San Miguel Arcángel church in Masaya, who, in the midst of the repression in the middle of Holy Week, denounced the State prohibitions on processions such as violations to the right of Catholics.
Roman said to CONFIDENTIAL that thousands of faithful have lived their faith, despite the limitations imposed by the Executive and affirmed that it is not possible to generalize in the case of the police and the repression, because some of them are Catholics and do not agree with the abuses.
“Another told me that he no longer wanted to be a policeman and the family came to pick him up at the rectory, and I gave him one of my shirts to go unnoticed. A crying policewoman came to tell me that she was the victim of rape in the Masaya barracks, while she had to remain concentrated at that time, where they used some inhalant chemical while she slept. She had to go into exile and I saw her again, ”said the religious.
Román was confident that the police “will listen to the voice of conscience and that they will once again wear the uniform of dignity.”