The Nicaraguan regime, tougher against the Church: now expelling a congregation of nuns

The attack by Daniel Ortega’s regime in Nicaragua against the Catholic Church continues. After the expulsion of Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, apostolic nuncio (ambassador of the Pope), in March, the sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta have now been fired.

This was reported by Monsignor Silvio José Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua.

“I am very sad that the dictatorship forced the Missionaries of Charity, Sisters Teresa of Calcutta, to leave the country. Nothing justifies depriving the poor of the care of charity. I am a witness to the loving service that the sisters have rendered,” she said.

The decision is part of an Ortega government decree with which this Wednesday 101 non-governmental organizations closed, among them the Missionaries of Charity Association of the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Order.

The regime also announced that it is preparing to close another 100 in the coming days.

The decree closing the NGOs was approved by the parliament in power with 75 votes in favor and 15 abstentions and brought to 758 the number of non-profit associations banned by President Ortega in the last four years.

The Church in sight

In Nicaragua the Church is substantially accused of being close to popular protests and also, in some cases, of the repressed opposition with repression and arrests.

The country’s churches and cathedrals are also attacked by paramilitaries

Now those nuns who take care of the little ones on earth, from orphans to the disabled, from the elderly to single women are also targeted.

According to the Nicaraguan government, the Missionaries of Charity, in Managua since 1986, must leave the country because they have not respected the laws on the “financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.

This is the justification provided by the Directorate General for Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations of the Ministry of the Interior; the same reason a hundred NGOs were banned.

The Ministry of the Interior, in the case of the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, added that the religious congregation carries out activities for which it has not received authorization from the Ministries of the Family, of Public Education and of Health.

And he explicitly mentions kindergartens, centers for the disabled and nursing homes.

However, there is still hope, albeit very faint: the government’s decision should be ratified by Parliament.

So far it has validated about 80 of the more than 100 expulsions decided by Ortega. But the words of the auxiliary bishop of Managua do not seem to leave room for a positive ending.

Indignation

At the international level, the indignation is strong, also because the Missionaries of Charity have never been involved in politics in any country in the world, but they have shared their lives only with the weakest in society trying to alleviate their situation.

“In the country led by Ortega, since April 2018 we have witnessed a profound socio-political crisis, accompanied by numerous crimes against religious, such as the cancellation of residence permits for foreign priests”, said Alessandro Monteduro, director of the papal foundation Ayuda a la Church that suffers, which is concerned with the protection of persecuted Christians in the world.

Referring to the Ortega regime’s decision to expel the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he stressed that “the nuns were expelled along with 101 other charitable groups”.

In this climate of oppression, the Catholic Church unsuccessfully attempts to mediate between government and opposition.

Unfortunately, it has also become the target of attacks and reprisals for having given shelter in its buildings to demonstrators demanding the release of political prisoners.

The Church, Monteduro concluded, continues to denounce violations of human rights, including religious freedom, “but the prospects for the future are bleak”.

Source: ANSA and AP

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