Dictatorship in Nicaragua confiscates convent of sisters it abducted and expelled

Walter Sanchez Silva   By Walter Sanchez Silva for CNA

July 5, 2023 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 1 Print

 

The Sisters of the Fraternity of the Poor Ones of Jesus Christ / Facebook Fraternidade O Caminho

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 5, 2023 / 13:27 pm (CNA).

In a new attack against the Catholic Church, the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua canceled the legal personhood and confiscated the assets of a congregation of women religious.

Members of the Sandinista police “like criminals broke into the house of the Sisters of the Fraternity of the Poor Ones of Jesus Christ at midnight yesterday; they were going to leave the country soon,” tweeted Martha Patrica Molina on July 2.

Molina is a Nicaraguan lawyer and researcher who authored the report “Nicaragua: a Persecuted Church?” which details over 500 attacks against the Church by the regime.

The Nicaraguan media outlet Article 66 reported that the Ministry of the Interior took the measure July 4 and that the sisters were going to leave Nicaragua next week since the authorities had not renewed their residency permit.

The sisters later tweeted that they have gone to El Salvador to continue their mission to serve the needy.

The rationale used for the decision to seize the convent was that the congregation “failed to comply with its obligations” by not reporting its latest financial statements and because the term of its board of directors had expired in February 2021.

The ministry said that it is now the responsibility of the Attorney General’s Office to transfer the assets of the congregation, including the convent, to the state.

“The measure adopted against the sisters is arbitrary, to which they now add the confiscation of their real estate,” Molina lamented.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Molina noted that “the Political Constitution of Nicaragua prohibits confiscation, but it has already become a common practice under the dictatorship, just like in the 1980s.”

The Sisters of the Fraternity of the Poor Ones of Jesus Christ arrived in Nicaragua in 2016 from Brazil, where they were founded by Father Gilson Sobreiro. They are also present in Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.

This new attack by the Ortega dictatorship against the women religious took place one year after the regime expelled a group of Missionaries of Charity, the congregation founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta,

The sisters were received by the Diocese of Tilarán-Liberia in neighboring Costa Rica.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson: ‘My parents were teenagers when I was born’ a year before Roe

January 22, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with EWTN News’ Erik Rosales at the U.S. Capitol. / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2024 / 19:00 pm (CNA).

House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with EWTN News on the eve of the March for Life about his belief “in the sanctity of every human life at all stages” and shared a bit about his personal history.

“I’m the product of an unplanned pregnancy. My parents were teenagers when I was born, exactly one year before Roe v. Wade in 1972, in January,” Johnson told Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales in an interview that aired Monday on “EWTN News Nightly.”

“Often we talk about the unborn, which is certainly important because we believe life has value from the moment of conception because it’s our Creator that gives us that and gives us our value,” Johnson said. “But it’s all the way through every stage of life.”

“This is an important thing to support young mothers who are in times of crisis in unplanned situations, to support families, to support them all the way through the pregnancy,” he said. 

“And then after, we need to be promoting adoption, cutting red tape that hinders the foster children system. So there’s a lot of work to do to build a culture of life.”

Johnson said Congress also has a role to play in protecting the pro-life community from attacks. In the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many pregnancy resource centers were victimized by arson attacks and acts of vandalism. 

“We have to, again, bring accountability,” he said. “We have a very important responsibility here in Congress to ensure that the rule of law is maintained, to ensure that the inherent and fundamental freedoms of all people are respected.”

The speaker pointed out that religious freedom is “literally the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights,” which he said was “not by accident.”

“The founders understood that was essential not only to who we are as Americans but to who we are as human beings,” he told Rosales. 

“And so Congress has a role to advance that, to maintain those founding principles and to defend them at all costs.”

The weaponization of the U.S. government

Johnson also told EWTN that Congress needs to hold government institutions accountable for incidents like last year’s controversial federal investigation into traditionalist U.S. Catholics.

Rosales asked Johnson about last year’s revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had circulated a memorandum that described an investigation into traditionalist Catholics for possible ties to domestic terrorist activities. 

The memorandum was the subject of hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in December that the bureau “[does] not and will not conduct investigations based on anybody’s exercise of their constitutionally protected religious [expression].” 

Johnson told Rosales that lawmakers describe the FBI as “weaponized” because “that’s exactly what it is.” Congress “[has] to bring accountability for agencies that have been spun out of control,” he said.

“It’s alarming,” Johnson said. “So we’ve called it out, we’ve drawn attention to it, and we’re demanding accountability for those who are in charge to ensure that those abuses of our agencies don’t happen again.”

“Ultimately, what’s at stake here is the people’s belief in our institutions, their faith in our institutions of government,” Johnson continued. “And that faith is at an all-time low right now. That’s what the polling shows. And that’s a very dangerous thing.” 

“To keep a constitutional republic — a government of, by, and for the people — the people have to believe that their justice system is fair and that they’re not picking on or discriminating against people of faith. And we’ve got to make sure that that happens,” Johnson concluded.

“EWTN News Nightly” airs weekday evenings at 6 p.m. ET.

[…]

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