Rafael Manuel Tovar
(ZENIT News / Managua, 09.12.2023).- Father Osman José Amador Guillén was detained in the cathedral of Estelí after leading a prayer for Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who has been imprisoned since 2022. The 36-year-old priest was taken from the Cathedral at 10 p.m. on Friday, September 8th, by the police of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime, and his whereabouts are unknown, according to Nicaraguan media.
Sources from the Diocese of Estelí reported on the kidnapping, carried out by a group of riot police who stormed the church during a meeting of clergy members.
Lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, a researcher on the persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, comments that the priest’s kidnapping is possibly a reprisal for his recent celebrations in which he prayed for the freedom of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí.
This kidnapping by the Ortega regime adds to the cases of priests Pastor Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides and Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez, who were arrested by the Sandinista Police in May and are being investigated for administrative matters related to the defunct Caritas of Estelí.
Father Uriel Vallejo from Sébaco, Diocese of Matagalpa, suffered a similar irregular detention in August 2022. Nicaraguan journalist Elmer José Rivas reported on Twitter: “Father Uriel and six others remain kidnapped, with no access to food. The jailers do not enter the room, but they do not leave either.”
Father Osman José Amador Guillén is originally from San Fernando, Nueva Segovia department, and was the last director of Caritas Diocesana de Estelí, which was shut down by the regime in March of this year. It is feared that his detention is linked to the case of priests Pastor Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides and Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez.
The Diocese’s source recalled that during the kidnapping of priests Rodríguez and Guevara last April, some people believed Father Amador had also disappeared when he had actually gone into hiding for security reasons.
Martha Patricia Molina comments that more than three months have passed, and the police who kidnapped priests Rodríguez and Guevara for an investigation against the Church for alleged money laundering still have not provided any information about the case. “They say nothing because they have no evidence: they have nothing.”
