Why is Daniel Ortega merciless with the Catholic Church in Nicaragua?

Perhaps his voice had carried too far. The one who appeared as one of the most visible faces of the rejection of human rights violations in Nicaragua, is now deprived of the power to raise, precisely, his voice.

The bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, served this Friday, August 26, a week in detention after an exile that set off all the alarms of national and international human rights organizations.

This happened when the city of Matagalpa was still shrouded in darkness. At half past three in the morning of Friday, August 19, the special forces of the Nicaraguan police broke into the Episcopal Curia of that city and took out Bishop Rolando Álvarez.

Since then, he has remained in “home shelter” in Managua. His crime of him? Participate “in destabilizing and provocative activities”, according to the words of the Government.

A bishop with critical sermons towards power

If the event caused such a stir in the country and among the international media, it is because the man was one of the most critical voices within the Nicaraguan Catholic hierarchy. From his pulpit, he rejected the human rights violations, religious persecution, and abuses of power by the ruling couple, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

The latter, just before the exile of the Bishop of Matagalpa, had made reference to that pastoral voice: “There are still some characters who are buffoonish, who make fools of themselves, without any moral stature, characters who believe that time has not elapsed or that they can occupy places of authority that they may not deserve. The vice president did not mention names, but her words now resonate like prescient threats.

“There is a terrible contrast between that noble, peaceful voice that Monsignor Álvarez is, and the barbarity of the state action against him,” deplores Pedro Vaca, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in interview with France 24.

Within Nicaragua, several voices critical of the Government of Daniel Ortega assured that the initial intention of the presidential couple was to push the bishop into exile. A plan that the clergyman himself advanced that he would not follow, when in one of his masses he made it clear that he was not “leaving his homeland.”

But the events surrounding him leave little doubt about the pressures against him. It was in that same northern department where the president and his wife also closed down seven Catholic radio stations run by the Diocese of Matagalpa at the beginning of the month.

The range of measures to attack the Catholic Church

Not surprisingly, experts speak of a campaign of terror against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church. In the past year and a half, authorities have expelled the Vatican nuncio from the country as well as 18 nuns from the Missionaries of Charity order, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Currently, eight religious are also imprisoned.

Harassment of temples, physical attacks, interrogations of priests, impediment to officiate masses or carry out religious processions in the streets are other offensives that the ecclesiastics have denounced under the Ortega-Murillo regime.

But to measure the impact of this crusade against religious actors, it is necessary to understand the role of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how a country where 90% of the population considers itself to be of Christian confession could be involved in this persecution of the Church.

“As one of the most Catholic countries in the region, the Church is a powerful actor that can challenge the official narrative. The attacks on its members show how far Ortega and Murillo are willing to go in their irrational repression against critical voices,” The deputy director for the Americas of ‘Human Rights Watch’, Tamara Taraciuk, tells France 24.

Temples as the last spaces of free expression

“It is the last trench of civil expression that remains in the country,” summarizes Juan Diego Barberena, a member of the Political Council of National Unity, the largest opposition movement in Nicaragua. And it is that after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian Sandinista government, the Catholic churches became the only institution that managed to escape the control of their elites.

Thus, the ecclesiastics began to assume a role of counterpower, while the cathedrals welcomed free expression speeches that were lacking in the rest of Nicaragua’s public space. Free expression increasingly undermined: France 24 contacted several entities of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church and received no response.

An aggravated situation from 2018

The most serious tensions between the Government of Ortega-Murillo and the Catholic Church have occurred since 2018. The social outbreak that was born against a reform of the social security laws was violently repressed, and the prophetic mission of justice and peace of the Catholic Church pushed a majority of priests to give shelter to protesters fleeing police and paramilitary repression. “The historical role of the Church is to be on the side of the most needy, of those repressed by power,” explains Juan Diego Barberena to France 24.

The priests also tried to mediate a national dialogue for peace, but the president’s response was to call them “coup plotters” and “terrorists.” The first lady, for her part, was more creative, calling them “devils in cassocks.”

“Since then, the regime has dedicated itself to harassing and intimidating those who openly denounced human rights violations, which led, for example, to the departure of Bishop Silvio Báez from the country in 2019 amid death threats,” recalls Tamara. Taraciuk.

The Ortega regime has dedicated itself to harassing and intimidating those who openly denounced human rights violations.

Tamara Taraciuk, deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch

However, the current crusade against the Catholic Church and the ruling party has a historical precedent, as Diego Barberena recalls: “During the 1980s, the priests were already persecuted by the Sandinistas. at that level.”

It is probably this scale of severity that prompted Pope Francis to make a rare reference to the repression in Nicaragua on Sunday, August 21, sharing his “concern and pain”: “I would like to express my conviction and my hope that through a open and sincere dialogue, we can still find the basis for a respectful and peaceful coexistence”.

Finally, the nature of these arrests and the position of the actors involved show that it is not an ideological battle but a political one. “Today they are attacking the Catholic Church, but tomorrow it will be the Evangelical Church. And soon, in Nicaragua the war will be ‘scorched earth,’ against everyone,” warns the member of the Blue and White National Unity.