“Thank you for this great spiritual communion”, the message of the bishop who was held back for two weeks by the Ortega regime in Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Alvarezdetained by the police for two weeks in his curia to investigate him for trying to “destabilize” the country, he thanked this Thursday for the demonstrations of solidarity, amid the tensions between the clergy and the government.

“Thank you for keeping us waiting, for reminding us (…) thank you for this great spiritual communion“where” our strength resides “, said the bishop, in a mass broadcast by Facebook from inside the curia surrounded by police.

Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, north of the country e critic of Daniel Ortega’s governmenthe has been detained in his curia together with a dozen people since last August 4.

His detention took place a few days after he denounced the closure by the authorities of five Catholic radios and asked the government to respect religious “freedom”.

The police announced that the bishop’s diocese is under investigation for trying to “organize violent groups” and incite “hatred” to “destabilize the state of Nicaragua”.

“We are in God’s hands”the prelate expressed this Thursday.

“The Lord is among us (…) the God who in every Eucharist overcomes darkness, iniquity, in every Eucharist makes hell tremble and throws them back into the sea of ​​their own evil, where they cannot harm us. bad “, he assured this Thursday.

He had previously said that he had been given “house arrest” and that the authorities “are making their assumptions” about him.

The bishop’s retention takes place amid the friction that the Church has with the government of Ortega, a 76-year-old guerrilla in power since 2007, protected by three successive re-elections.

The latest took place in November 2021, with his opponents imprisoned or exiled and in the midst of international issues.

The president accuses the bishops of “putschists” for supporting opposition protests calling for his resignation in 2018. The church then facilitated the release of jailed opponents.

Relationships have deteriorated. This year there was the closure of the Catholic media, including the channel of the Bishops’ Conference, and the recent arrest of the priest Oscar Benavidez, for no known reason.

The Missionaries of Charity Association, of the order of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, which left the country in July, is also outlawed. In March, the apostolic nuncio, Waldemar Sommertag, who participated in the negotiations between the government and the opposition in 2018 and 2019, had already been expelled.

With information from AFP

DD