Crucial hours for the freedom of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, the rebel bishop of Nicaragua, who according to local media was released on Monday night thanks to efforts made by the Vatican, after almost 11 months of unjust and arbitrary imprisonment.
Pope Francis’ diplomats would have managed to get the prelate to leave the La Modelo penitentiary dungeon to be transferred to an outside ecclesiastical facility, a fact denied yesterday by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes. “They were wrong,” said the cardinal before the information provided by the agency of the Catholic Church.
“He is trapped in a tough and tense situation,” stressed Bianca Jagger, a human rights activist, the first to report on the bishop’s release and the intention to send him to Rome.
Local media and different sources of information assumed that Álvarez was going to leave the Central American country yesterday to travel to Rome, although Bishop Álvarez has never accepted exile. This is how Honduran Bishop José Antonio Canales recalled it through social networks: “Monsignor does not want to leave Nicaragua. He wants to be free, without conditions, in his country.”
Monsignor Álvarez already refused in February to board the plane chartered by Washington to transport the 222 political prisoners exiled by Daniel Ortega. This refusal, which overthrew the initial strategy of the Sandinista dictatorship, provoked the wrath of the Nicaraguan president and the subsequent sentence of Álvarez to 26 years in prison for treason to the country.
POSSIBLE POPE INTERVENTION
Only the direct intervention of the Pope would force the bishop of Matagalpa to leave his country, as happened in 2019 with Monsignor Silvio José Báez, auxiliary archbishop of Managua, who is currently in exile in the US after passing through the Vatican.
“Monsignor is an example of faith and strength. The desire is to see him together with his clergy in his diocese of Matagalpa. Sharing his message as a prophet and pastor sensitive to the voice of God. The voice of the people,” certified the university leader Lesther Aleman , one of the members of the Group of 222.
The negotiations between the two parties take place despite the existing tension since the dictator Ortega ordered the suspension of relations with the Vatican. The Sandinista leader did not accept the strong criticism made by Francisco, who compared his regime with “the communist dictatorship of 1917 or the Hitlerite one of 1935. They are a type of rude dictatorships.”
THE FUTURE OF FIVE OTHER PRIESTS
The immediate future of the five priests imprisoned by the dictatorship in recent months is also being decided on the negotiating table. Despite the total secrecy of the negotiators, local media reported that Manuel Salvador García, parish priest of El Calvario; Gregorio Rodríguez, parish priest of Nueva Segovia; Leonardo Guevara and Jaime Montesinos would follow the same steps as the bishop, like José Leonardo Urbina, sentenced to 30 years in prison for alleged sexual abuse. The parish priest of Perpetual Help in Granada suffered a process marked by irregularities.
Last week, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Sandinista government to immediately release Monsignor Álvarez, finding himself in a “serious situation that causes irreparable damage to his life, health, and personal integrity.” Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, announced that she would demand Ortega’s freedom after meeting with the Pope in Rome.
The firm position of the Bishop of Matagalpa made it impossible to obtain the political benefit that Daniel Ortega sought by sending the cream of Nicaraguan dissidence to the US, which provoked the dictator’s wrath, who defined him as a madman and a madman, “incapable of to have the courage of Christ, who endured the crucifixion”.
WITHDRAWAL OF NATIONALITY
The sentence imposed by the Sandinista courts reached 26 years and 4 months in prison, in addition to the withdrawal of nationality. That is the price paid in Nicaragua by those who dare to oppose Ortega. The initial accusation against Álvarez was conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news, to which he added treason.
Of the more than 10 months that the bishop remained imprisoned, the first four were spent in a clandestine government prison. Since 2018, when the popular rebellion against Ortega broke out, the Sandinista government has persecuted and harassed the Catholic Church, even going so far as to ban Holy Week processions.
The siege imposed by the revolution against the Church, which it has even accused of financing itself with money from money laundering, is one of the tricks with which Ortega plays at the negotiating table with the Vatican. Confiscation of assets, freezing of bank accounts, closure of Catholic radio stations and foundations, as well as the express expulsion of groups of nuns are part of the government strategy against the Church.
The dictator Ortega and his wife, co-president Rosario Murillo, have focused their attacks on the Catholic Church because it is the only institution that remains standing within the country. Opponents, activists, dissidents and a large part of civil society were forced into exile or exile.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body. They slander, imprison, exile and kill. They may kill the body, but not ideals and faith. They may even end the life of the prophet, but they will not be able to silence the liberating word of the Gospel “, Monsignor Báez has repeated in his homilies to castigate the dictatorship.
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