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Pope Francis said on Sunday that he was concerned and saddened by the situation in Nicaragua, especially by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years in prison, and by the recent deportation of 222 opponents to the United States.
The government of Daniel Ortega released 222 opponents on Thursday and deported them to the United States, stripped of their nationality. Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who refused to be deported, was sentenced to 26 years in prison for, among other charges, undermining national integrity.
The news coming from Nicaragua has saddened me a lot, said the Argentine pontiff at the end of his traditional Angelus prayer, in Saint Peter’s Square: “I cannot help remembering with concern the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, whom I love so much”he added, and “also to people who have been deported to the United States.”
Francisco said to pray for all of them and for those who suffer in that beloved nation.
Among the 222 Nicaraguan opponents released from prison are the former presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro and her brother and former minister Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, as well as other politicians who wanted to challenge Ortega in the last elections.
Two other members of the Chamorro family linked to the newspaper La Prensa, which is now published online in exile, and former guerrilla commander Dora María Téllez were also released and expelled to the United States.
On Thursday, when announcing the measure, Ortega said that the 56-year-old bishop of Matagalpa, who has been detained since August for conspiracy, refused to go to the United States with the group of those released.
The president indicated that a dozen priests, deacons and seminarians voluntarily boarded the flight that took 222 opponents released from jail and that now there are only three religious prisoners in Nicaragua: two priests “for common crimes” and the bishop for “terrorism”.
with AFP
