Nicaragua Expels 19 Imprisoned Catholic Clerics to Vatican

Nicaragua on Sunday released a group of 19 clergymen from prison, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the country’s most prominent political prisoner, and expelled them to the Vatican.

The government of authoritarian President Daniel Ortega said Sunday that the release was a result of negotiations with the Vatican. The group also includes Bishop Isidoro Mora, 15 priests and two seminarians.

“This is a continuation of the repression against the Catholic Church,” said Juan Sebastián Chamorro, a former presidential candidate who had been imprisoned and was expelled to the U.S. in February. “It’s the pattern. Any priest who talks in favor of democracy will be imprisoned and then exiled,” he said.

The Catholic Church has been targeted by the Ortega government since 2018, when a wave of nationwide protests rocked the country. The church took a leading role in trying to mediate a political solution to the crisis, which took the lives of more than 300 people, most of them killed by Nicaragua’s security services. Angered by the church’s role, Ortega accused it of being part of a plot to topple his government.

The outspoken Álvarez, bishop of the city of Matagalpa, had been in prison for almost a year after receiving a 26-year sentence for treason. The prelate previously refused to go into exile with 222 other political prisoners who were stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and expelled to the U.S. Mora, the bishop of Siuna, was detained in December after he asked for prayers for Álvarez at a mass.

In the two weeks after Mora’s detention, the regime led by Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, detained a further 13 priests and three seminarians.

Pope Francis mentioned the detentions in remarks to thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on New Year’s Day. A week later, he repeated his concerns.

“It’s a crisis that has gone on for a long time with painful consequences for Nicaraguan society and the Catholic Church in particular,” the pontiff said. He repeated an offer to have a dialogue with the Nicaraguan government. Last year, Francis said that Nicaragua’s government was a “gross dictatorship” and compared it to Hitler’s Germany.

Nicaragua’s government said Sunday that the clergymen had been received by Vatican authorities as part of a process to “promote understanding and better communication with the Holy See.” The Vatican declined to comment.

Brian A. Nichols, U.S. assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, welcomed their release. “Every individual deserves the right to worship at home and abroad,” he wrote on X.

In October, Ortega’s government released and expelled 12 priests. Since 2018, more than 200 Catholic clergy have been forced into exile or refused re-entry to Nicaragua, according to Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan academic now living in Miami who keeps a tally of government actions taken against the church.

Twelve religious orders including the Jesuits, to which the pope belongs, and Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, have been kicked out of Nicaragua, Molina said. The Ortega government has also confiscated Catholic universities such as the Jesuit-run Central American University, which the government said was a center for terrorism.

The regime has banned Caritas, the Catholic Church’s principal charitable arm, and most religious processions. Last year, the Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua.

—Francis X. Rocca contributed to this article.

Write to José de Córdoba at [email protected]