Catholic clergy report surveillance, beatings amid Nicaragua's crackdown
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[July 07, 2023]
By David Alire Garcia
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The police showed up two days after a Catholic
clergyman at a church near the Nicaraguan capital Managua delivered a
Sunday sermon in May that included a prayer "for our priests."
The officers played an audio clip of the prayer and warned: These kinds
of things are dangerous, recalled a priest who was at Sunday services
and when the police officers arrived. He asked not to be identified for
fear of arrest.
"We tried to explain that this is just normal prayer, nothing to do with
politics," the priest said in a video interview. "But they already have
proof against us that they can manipulate however they like."
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's five-year campaign against the
Catholic church has intensified since February, according to interviews
with five priests inside and outside the country.
The priests, one in Nicaragua and four outside the country, describe a
sharp increase in church surveillance by police and citizen informants;
police beatings; arrests and expulsions of priests and nuns as well as
seizures of church-owned properties.
This week's brief release of Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Alvarez raised
hopes for a turning point. But while senior Mexican Bishop Ramon Castro
said in an interview that talks between representatives of the
Nicaraguan government and the church are "undoubtedly" ongoing, he held
out little hope of a breakthrough. "It's very probable," the Vatican
diplomat said, "that we're going to have to pass through more difficult
moments."
The escalation continued in March after Pope Francis condemned
Nicaragua's government as a "gross dictatorship" and Ortega responded by
severing ties with the Vatican.
The police referred questions to Nicaragua's foreign ministry, which did
not respond to requests for comment. Vice President Rosario Murillo, the
government's spokesperson and Ortega's wife, did not respond to written
questions.
A Managua-based diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said
he had heard reports of police surveillance of clergy and found them
credible.
He said he was concerned that the crackdown appeared ongoing, with
credible accounts of an increase in expulsions of religious orders and
property confiscations in addition to surveillance.
Vatican officials have told Reuters privately that they see the conflict
in Nicaragua as one of the worst since the Cold War, when many communist
countries in Eastern Europe persecuted the church.
In February, Bishop Alvarez, an Ortega critic, was convicted of treason,
stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison for
treason, without a trial.
The sentencing statement said Alvarez was "the author of the crimes of
damaging national integration, propagation of false news through
information and communication technologies, aggravated obstruction of
functions and disobedience or contempt of authority."
Alvarez denies the charges.
The bishop of the rural Matagalpa diocese was returned to prison on
Wednesday after talks broke down over the terms for his release and that
of other jailed clerics, a diplomatic source told Reuters.
'MUST BE SILENT'
In late May, the Nicaraguan government launched a money laundering
investigation into the church, ordering the country's bishops and senior
leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, to turn over financial documents and
freezing all church bank accounts.
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A parishioner reacts during a mass at
Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua August 21, 2022.
REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
The freeze on accounts has made it difficult to buy food and other
necessities for parishes, all five of the priests Reuters
interviewed said. The government stepped in last month to pay
teacher salaries at hundreds of church-affiliated schools.
Brenes has not commented publicly on the inquiry and his office
declined Reuters' request for an interview.
A Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the
money laundering accusations "absurd."
At least four priests have been placed under house arrest since May
23, according to Martha Patricia Molina, an exiled Nicaraguan
researcher and lawyer now living in Texas.
Seven priests have been expelled, six priests have fled the country,
while two others have been denied re-entry so far this year,
according to Molina.
A group of Brazilian nuns from the diocese of Leon were ordered to
leave the country in June, according to text messages reviewed by
Reuters and a post on their Facebook page.
The Nicaraguan bishops conference did not respond to a request for
comment.
Late last month, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met
the pope in the Vatican and pledged to personally lobby Ortega to
free Alvarez, offering to open a communications channel between the
Vatican and Managua.
The Nicaraguan government did not respond to questions or requests
for comment.
The priests describe heavy surveillance of church services by police
or civilian members of government-sponsored community councils,
especially since Easter.
Three of them say they believe phone calls are being monitored. They
did not provide proof and Reuters was unable to verify their claim
independently.
"My mother told me yesterday that police arrived at our house and
made everyone turn over their phone numbers," said one of the
priests, currently outside the country. "It's an open secret that
many people have their phones tapped."
Ortega's campaign against the church started five years ago after
Catholic leaders were asked by the government to help mediate mass
anti-government protests triggered by government plans to cut
old-age pensions.
At least 356 civilians were killed in the protests, according to the
human rights commission of the Organization of American States.
Ortega, 77, came to power in 1979 after deposing a right-wing
dictatorship. He launched an offensive against the church in the
1980s, but after his electoral defeat in 1990, he made overtures to
Catholics and backed an abortion ban.
His latest restrictions seem aimed at silencing priests, Erick Diaz,
33, a Nicaraguan priest in exile in Chicago, said.
"Priests inside Nicaragua must be silent. They can't even mention
the name of the bishop because the police will come after you and
they can put you in jail or force you into exile," he said.
Nine church leaders inside and outside Nicaragua did not respond to
interview requests for this story.
(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Additional reporting by Philip
Pullella in Rome and Ismael Lopez in San Jose; Editing by Suzanne
Goldenberg)
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