Daniel Ortega deals another blow to the Catholic Church in Nicaragua: now it freezes its bank accounts

In another attack on the Catholic Church, the Nicaraguan government led by Daniel Ortega frozen bank accounts from at least three of the country’s nine dioceses, ecclesiastical sources denounced this Saturday.

The dioceses with their tied current accounts are those of Managua, presided over by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, and those of Matagalpa and Estelí, run by the imprisoned bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was sentenced last February to more than 26 years in prison for crimes considered ” treason against the fatherland,” religious sources told EFE.

Cardinal Brenes, also archbishop of Managua, told the Expediente Público portal that he could not confirm the freezing of diocesan bank accounts and that for the moment he is “seeing how to resolve the situation”.

For his part, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Nicaragua, mgr. Carlos Herrera, told the Despacho 505 platform that he had received information about the problems with the bank accounts of the dioceses, but that it has not been officially notified.

Transfers denied

Exiled Nicaraguan researcher Martha Patricia Molina has posted screenshots of failed attempts to make bank transfers to accounts in the Archdiocese of Managua.

“Check that the entered account is correct and try again”, “It was not possible to make your transfer”, “Invalid account”, are, among others, the messages that you read when you try to make a transfer to the accounts of the ‘Archdiocese of Managua, according to Molina.

Until this Saturday, neither the government nor private banks had referred to the restriction of those diocesan bank accounts, nor to the arrest of three priests this week.

Two days ago, the National Police reported that it is investigating the priest Jaime Montesinos for committing acts that undermine the independence, sovereignty and self-determination of the nation, in accordance with article 1 of the Law for the Defense of the Rights of Peoples to Independence, Sovereignty, Self-determination and Peace.

The religious is the pastor of the Juan Pablo II church in the municipality of Sébaco, department of Matagalpa, the diocese headed by Bishop Álvarez.

The police are also investigating two other priests for “administrative matters” of the dissolved Cáritas Diocesana de Estelí, Northern Nicaragua, which Álvarez also manages.

Persecution of the Church

For the denationalized Nicaraguan opposition leader Félix Maradiaga, “the blocking of bank accounts of various dioceses of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua is an extreme act of aggression and persecution of the Church”.

“It is also an explicit declaration of the true aspirations of the dictatorship: to completely silence and dissolve the voice and even the presence of an institution which, due to its moral weight in Nicaragua, is an obstacle to the plans of Ortega-Murillo, to consolidate a dynastic dictatorship,” Maradiaga warned in a public statement.

“It is time for the international community to enter the phase of complete ignorance of the regime,” he added.

The reports of the Ortega regime and the Catholic Church are now alive moments of great tensionmarked by expulsion and detention of priests, the ban on religious activities and the suspension of their diplomatic relations.

Pope Francis called the Sandinista government a “rude dictatorship” in an interview with Infobae, underlining “an imbalance in the person who governs” the Central American country.

Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second together with his wife , Rosario Murillo. , as vice president, with his main contenders in prison or in exile.

Source: EFE