The Nicaraguan government on Sunday labeled the Vatican as “depraved” and “pedophilic” while lashing out against statements made by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, whom they expelled to Rome a year ago after being imprisoned for months. “From the millions of voices and souls, brutally silenced by the inquisition, all peoples sacrificed and bled by this depraved, pedophilic Vatican State, denounced as such worldwide, rise up,” the Nicaraguan government said in a foreign ministry statement.
The Foreign Ministry attacked the Holy See in response to an interview last week where the bishop claimed he remains “the visible head” of the provinces of Matagalpa and Estelí, north of the capital. Additionally, the government claims that The Vatican, “usurping God’s name, cut heads, buried swords, and exterminated entire peoples and cultures (…) to dominate, conquer and steal our rich material and cultural heritage.”
For all these reasons, they consider the Vatican to be “not generous and indeed guilty of crimes against humanity.” “The Vatican State intends to make decisions about positions and powers they grant, in Nicaragua, to people who ceased to be Nicaraguans, due to improper and intolerable conduct in promoting politically instigated crimes,” it adds.
Despite being in exile for a year, when he was removed from prison, Álvarez remains a leader in these regions of the country. The government of President Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife Rosario Murillo have expelled hundreds of Catholic priests, including the president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Carlos Herrera, and Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna (northeast).
“The illicit and inappropriate conduct of falsifiers, pharisees, and prophets of emptiness, which we reject, differs in no way from behaviors and practices that derive from fascist, pro-imperialist ideologies, and can never be admitted, accepted, and much less applauded in Nicaragua,” the official note insists.
Ortega and Murillo accuse the Catholic Church of having supported protests against them in 2018 that left more than 300 dead, according to the UN, which they consider a US-sponsored coup attempt. Ortega, who governed in the 1980s after the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, has been in power since 2007 and is accused by opponents and critics of establishing an authoritarian regime.
