Nicaragua frees clerics including Alvarez, a fierce government critic

SAN JOSE - Nicaragua announced on Jan 14 it has released a number of clergy members who are critical of the government, including Catholic Bishop Rolando Alvarez.

The 57-year-old Bishop Alvarez, a strong critic of President Daniel Ortega, was sent along with 13 priests and three seminarians to Rome, local media and exiled opposition members said.

The prominent bishop, arrested in August 2022, was accused of being “a traitor to the fatherland” and sentenced to 26 years in prison in February 2023. In October 2023, he said he would rather remain imprisoned in Nicaragua than go into exile.

Also among those Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, freed were Bishop Isidoro Mora and 13 priests arrested in December 2023, exiled opposition cleric Uriel Vallejos and activist Haydee Castillo.

Mr Ortega, his wife and Vice-President Rosario Murillo would like to “leave Nicaragua without priests. Another plane full of pastors from the people to exile,” Mr Vallejos, exiled in the United States, wrote on X, the former Twitter.

The Office of the President said in a statement that the released clerics “have already been received by the Vatican authorities, in accordance with the agreements of good faith and good will which seek to promote understanding and improve communication between the Holy See and Nicaragua, for peace and good”.

Relations between the Vatican and Managua took a turn for the worse when Mr Ortega accused priests of supporting the 2018 anti-government protests, which he considered an attempted coup led by Washington and which resulted, according to the United Nations, in more than 300 deaths.

The United States and the Vatican were among those calling for Bishop Alvarez’s release.

The crackdown on priests in the Central American country prompted Pope Francis in early January to say during prayers that he was “closely following” the situation and called for dialogue.

Diplomatic relations between Managua and the Vatican have been on the verge of breaking down after the Pope in March 2023 called Mr Ortega’s government a “crude dictatorship”.

According to an investigation by Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Molina, exiled in the US, since 2018, there have been 740 attacks against the church and 176 priests and nuns have been expelled, banished or prohibited from entering the country.

Organisations linked to the church have been closed, including the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana of Managua. AFP