San Jose, Aug 16 (EFE).- The Nicaraguan priest Danny García, from the Diocese of Matagalpa, in northern Nicaragua, was arrested this Friday by the National Police Amid tensions between the government of President Daniel Ortega and the Catholic Church, denounced lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina.
García, a priest of the San Juan Bautista parish in the municipality of Muy Muy, department (province) of Matagalpa, was arrested this morning after reports on social media claimed that the church he runs was under police siege, Molina, the lawyer who is the author of the study ‘Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?’ and who follows these cases, told reporters.
Last weekend, Nicaraguan priests Leonel Balmaceda, from the Diocese of Estelí, and Denis Martínez, from the Diocese of Matagalpa, both in northern Nicaragua, were arrested.
That weekend, authorities also arrested laywoman Carmen Sáenz, a collaborator of the Episcopal Curia of the Diocese of Matagalpa.
So far, neither the Nicaraguan government nor the National Police have offered their versions of the allegations of these arrests, and they generally do not comment.
Is Ortega pressuring for the appointment of another bishop?
According to researcher Molina, “the Sandinista dictatorship intends to exterminate the presence of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Matagalpa.”
The Diocese of Matagalpa is led from exile by the denationalized bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was released from prison and sent to Rome last January.
The Catholic hierarch is also the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí.
Last Wednesday, the Nicaraguan government sent to the Vatican a group of seven priests from the Diocese of Matagalpa who were detained and under police surveillance at the Interdiocesan Seminary of Our Lady of Fatima in Managua.
Political sources told EFE that the Ortega government is pressuring the Vatican to appoint a new bishop in the Diocese of Matagalpa and in the Diocese of Estelí.
The case of Bishop Rolando Alvarez
Last January, the Ortega government agreed with the Holy See to send Álvarez and Bishop Isidoro Mora to the Vatican, along with 15 Nicaraguan priests and two seminarians, whom it had deprived of their liberty.
On October 18, the Nicaraguan government also released 12 priests and sent them to the Vatican following an agreement with the Holy See, although Bishop Álvarez was not among them, as he refused to leave the country.
Previously, on February 9, 2023, authorities released eight other priests and sent them to the United States, as part of 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners released.
On that occasion, Bishop Álvarez, who had been placed under house arrest, refused to board the plane, was sent to a maximum security prison, and sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison, stripped of his nationality, and his civil rights suspended for life, for crimes considered treason.
The sentence against the high-ranking official was handed down one day after he refused to board the plane that was to take him with 222 other ex-Nicaraguan political prisoners to the United States, which provoked the indignation of President Ortega, who on national television called him “arrogant,” “unhinged” and “a madman.”
Relations between the Ortega government and the Catholic Church are experiencing moments of great tension, characterized by the expulsion and imprisonment of priests, the prohibition of religious activities, and the suspension of diplomatic relations.
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2024-08-18 04:31:07
