The Diocese of the Nicaraguan municipality of Matagalpa has reported this Friday that the National Police has entered its headquarters and has detained Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who is accused by the Nicaraguan Government of organizing “violent groups.”
This has been reported by the ecclesiastical formation on its Facebook profile. However, sources on condition of anonymity have told the newspaper ‘La Prensa’ that both the bishop and the eight people who were with him have been “kidnapped”.
Álvarez, a critic of the government of Daniel Ortega, already denounced in early August that the Police kept the episcopal curia of Matagalpa, where he lives, under siege. According to a statement from the Nicaraguan authorities, the bishop incites “to carry out acts of hatred against the population with the purpose of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua.”
The country’s government already imposed another blockade on Bishop Álvarez in May 2021, when the prelate took refuge in a church in Managua, which was also besieged by the National Police, according to the local newspaper ‘Confidential’.
Álvarez is one of the most critical voices within the Church with the Executive of Daniel Ortega. She recently denounced the alleged injustice of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post Office (Telcor), by closing ten Catholic stations in the Diocese, arguing that they did not have permission to operate, when the same prelate had requested it since 2016.
In July, the Government of Nicaragua expelled 18 missionaries from the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Order, a fact that would find justification in the drift that the Nicaraguan Executive would have taken against the Church by considering it “opposition and coup”, according to the portal of Aleteia religious news.
Source: Europa Press
