The Nicaraguan government unexpectedly released several high-profile Catholic clergy from prison on Sunday, including vocal regime critic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, and forcibly exiled them to Rome.
Along with Álvarez, who was arrested last August and condemned to 26 years behind bars just last month, Bishop Isidoro Mora and 13 other jailed priests found their sentences abruptly vacated as they were loaded onto a plane bound for Italy. Three detained seminarians joined the expelled religious figures.
According to exile groups and media outlets banned by the Ortega regime, the clergy arrived in Rome already to uncertain prospects. Prominent political prisoner advocates within Nicaragua confirmed the shocking deportations.
“Ortega and [Vice President Rosario] Murillo intend to leave Nicaragua without priests. Another plane full of pastors of the people into exile,” admonished Father Uriel Vallejos on Twitter after fleeing persecution himself last year.
The regime remains silent on the clergy’s remarkable departure, refusing to acknowledge the latest authoritarian tactic dismissing vocal critics. But the move conspicuously coincides with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega ratcheting up rhetoric vilifying local Catholic leaders as alleged coup plotters and foreign agents.
October saw a previous squad of 12 dissident priests similarly granted amnesty on the condition of banishment from Nicaragua. As the Ortega administration continues unleashing crackdowns on voices of dissent across sectors, the coerced flight of religious figures eliminates defiant icons rallying against human rights violations and democracy’s erosion.
With the Church long functioning as a rare check on political repression in Nicaragua, observers see the state’s systematic imprisonment then forcible ejection of Catholic leaders as an bid to consolidate absolute control by eliminating challenges. By compelling bishops and priests highlighting rights abuses to languish behind bars or flee abroad, Ortega aims to rule unrestrained at any cost.
