Preparations for popular, often daylong Lent and Holy Week processions are underway across Latin America — but not in Nicaragua. Source: NCR Online.
They’ve been largely banned for a second year, one of many concerns for the faithful in a country that human rights advocates, exiled priests and the United States Government say is pursuing one of the world’s most flagrant persecutions of religion.
AP spoke with several priests who are in exile in different countries, some after being imprisoned in inhumane conditions in Nicaragua. All requested their names, current locations and circumstances of departure from the Central American country be withheld for fear of repercussions against their families there.
More than 200 religious figures are in exile, making it difficult to hold Mass or hear confessions in Nicaragua, especially in small villages.
Many pastors still in Nicaragua are under near-constant surveillance, obliged to inform the police if they want to visit someone who’s ill and to submit drafts of their sermons for approval, according to those in exile and human rights activists.
With their bank accounts often frozen or stolen, some face shortages of food and medicine. One Catholic priest said his fellow clergy are trying to serve their flock while feeling constrained by constant threat.
The US Government has condemned the Nicaraguan government — led by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo — for the crackdown that seems to have intensified in recent years.
On his February trip to the region, Secretary of State Marco Rubio singled out the Nicaraguan government’s effort “to eliminate the Catholic Church and the religious community, and anyone who tries to take power from that regime is punished.”
To prevent last year’s Easter-time processions, thousands of police were deployed, according to the report. Only clergy “aligned” with the government are allowed outdoor worship.
Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer who fled to the United States, has recorded nearly 1000 instances of church persecution in Nicaragua from 2018 through 2024.
Among those in the past year are arrests and deportations of clergy and the prohibition of a public Via Crucis procession — the Lent devotion commemorating Jesus’ path to the cross.
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Nicaragua intensifies crackdown on Catholic Church, exiles and human rights advocates say (Giovanna Dell’Orto, AP via NCR Online)
