Dictatorship in Nicaragua expels president of country’s bishops’ conference

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 15, 2024 / 15:25 pm (CNA).

The dictatorship of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has expelled Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez of Jinotega, president of the country’s bishops’ conference. The prelate recently criticized a pro-Ortega mayor who interfered with a Mass by blasting loud music in front of the local cathedral.

The Latin American Bishops’ Council (CELAM, by its Spanish acronym), expressed its closeness following the expulsion of Herrera in a letter published on its website and addressed to Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, archbishop of Managua and vice president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference.

The Latin American bishops expressed their solidarity with Herrera and said they pray “that this situation will be resolved soon and that he can return to his homeland.”

They also expressed their pain over “the events that afflict the pilgrim Church in Nicaragua” and encouraged the bishops and the faithful of the country to continue being “a testimony of fidelity to the Lord that shines forth on the entire continent.”

Exiled to Guatemala

According to the Nicaraguan newspaper Mosaico CSI, Herrera was exiled to Guatemala on Wednesday, Nov. 13, and is staying at a residence of the Order of Friars Minor to which he belongs.

ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, has not been able to independently determine which Franciscan residence in Guatemala Herrera is reportedly staying at.

The prelate was abducted by the police Nov. 13 after participating in a meeting in Managua with the other Nicaraguan bishops.

At the start of Sunday Mass on Nov. 10, the bishop of Jinotega criticized from the altar the pro-Ortega mayor of that city, Leonidas Centeno, for interfering with Mass by playing loud music outside the cathedral.

“Before beginning this Eucharist, we ask the Lord for forgiveness for our faults and also for those who do not respect worship. This is a sacrilege — what the mayor and all the municipal authorities are doing — and I am going to tell them so because they know the time of the Mass,” Herrara said that day.

The Mass was broadcast live on the diocesan Facebook page but it was taken down shortly before the president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference was expelled from the country.

“Bishop Herrera has historically been one of the bishops’ most committed to justice and Christian solidarity toward those who have no voice, a true example of steadfastness and integrity,” said Félix Maradiaga, former presidential candidate and president of the Freedom for Nicaragua Foundation, Nov. 13 on X.

Maradiaga, who was deported by the regime in February 2023 after serving 611 days as a political prisoner, said that the expulsion of Herrera and the Diocese of Jinotega’s social media being shut down by the government in reprisal constitute “another attack against religious freedom and human dignity in Nicaragua and demands international attention and condemnation.”

Catacomb-level persecution

Speaking to the Spanish-language edition of EWTN News, Maradiaga said “the Church in Nicaragua is subjected to a persecution that has practically turned it into a Church of catacombs; the few priests who can still exercise their ministry with some freedom are those who have accepted the conditions imposed by the dictatorship, which demands total silence on any issue in the national state of affairs.”

Arturo McFields, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), said in a Nov. 14 post on X that the “crime” of the president of the bishops’ conference was “demanding respect for the religious service [in progress] and stopping the sacrilege. Religious freedom is a human right. Sending dozens of religious into exile is a crime against humanity.”

“Another Nicaraguan diocese is left without its bishop. So far, there are already four dioceses that are without their pastor. Let us continue praying for the Nicaraguan Church in the face of this situation of persecution that it is experiencing,” Nicaraguan priest Erick Díaz, who lives in exile in Chicago, lamented on Facebook.

Herrera is the third Nicaraguan bishop expelled by the Ortega dictatorship this year. In January, Bishop Rolando Álvarez Lagos of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí, and Bishop Isidoro Mora of the Diocese of Siuna were exiled to the Vatican along with other priests. Prior to being deported, Álvarez had served 11 months of a 26-year sentence for treason.

In 2019, Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua and a critic of the Ortega dictatorship, was forced to go into exile because of the credible death threats he received.

According to Mosaico CSI, to date, 44 priests have been expelled from Nicaragua by the dictatorship with no letup in sight of its fierce persecution of the Catholic Church.

One of the latest actions of the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, has been to prevent priests from entering hospitals and thus from administering the sacrament of anointing of the sick.

With the expulsion of Herrera, only five out of nine bishops remain in the country: Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, archbishop of Managua; Bishop Jorge Solórzano of Granada; Francisco José Tigerino of Bluefields; Sócrates René Sándigo of León; and Marcial Humberto Guzmán of Juigalpa.

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