(ZENIT News / Managua, 01.01.2024).- In the past eight days, the Sandinista police has arrested 12 priests and prohibited live Nativity Scenes in the country’s streets, a tradition led by children in the so-called “posadas.”
One Bishop, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Managua and four Catholic priests were arrested on December 28 in Nicaragua reported the religious Authorities and the Opposition’s spokesmen. On December 30, four others were arrested, confirmed to Reuters a top ranking member of the Catholic Church of the Central American country.
Monsignor Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, reported from exile the arrest of Father Pablo Villafranca, parish priest of Our Lord of Veracruz in Nindirí, Masaya; of Father Hector Treminio, Treasurer of the Archdiocese of Managua; and the parish priest of the Holy Christ of Esquipulas church, east of the capital. Monsignor Carlos Avilés Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Managua was also arrested.
At dawn on Saturday, December 30, three priests were taken from their residences: Fathers Mikel Monterrey, Gerardo Rodríguez and Raúl Zamora, along with Monsignor Miguel Mantica, son of one of Nicaragua’s wealthiest families. Monsignor Marcos Díaz Prado, Vicar of Saint Thomas the Apostle’s church of Puerto de Corinto, in the western region, was also taken prisoner by the regime’s police. “To date, there is no formal accusation against him, there is no news on his whereabouts,” said Nicaraguan investigator and lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, an exiled Catholic.
She also said that “Daniel Ortega knows there won’t be any repercussions: he feels strong because he is supported by the Army, the National Police, paramilitary groups, Citizen Power Councils and now the recently created and feared Ministry of the Interior.”
The Ortega Government also banned processions of the Immaculate Conception at the beginning of December and Nativity Scenes made for children in the streets in the days before Christmas, through visits of the Police to Nicaragua’s parishes to inform the priests that the Scenes would only be allowed in parish grounds, with the threat of prison if the prohibition was contravened.
According to lawyer Molina’s statistics, there have been 294 aggressions and 760 attacks against Catholic individuals and buildings of the Catholic Church in the past 5 years. One hundred seventy six Religious are hindered from exercising their ministry in Nicaragua as they are exiled, expelled or impeded from returning to the country after travelling there. Moreover, the Authorities have prohibited 3,700 processions in Nicaragua.
Heading the Ministry of the Interior was Commander Tomas Borge, one of the founders of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation, great persecutor of the enemies of the Sandinista revolution and of Catholic priests.
The new Minister of the Interior is taking up “a creation of the totalitarian governments of Eastern Europe, repressive organs to suppress and subject the popular will, individual thought and democratic ideas in a subjected and enslaved society dominated by a group of criminals in the political power,” said Martha Patricia Molina.
