(LifeSiteNews) — The Daniel Ortega-led Nicaraguan government has reportedly abducted at least nine Catholic priests since July 26, putting them under “total surveillance.”
On August 5, Attorney, author and researcher Martha Patricia Molina shared on X a list of nine priests who have been “abducted by the Sandinista dictatorship.”
They include Monsignor Ulises Vega Matamoros, Monsignor Edgar Sacasa Sierra, Father Víctor Godoy, Father Jairo Pravia Flores, Father Marlon Velásquez, Father Jarvin Torrez, and Father Raúl Villegas, all of them from the clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa; Friar Silvio Romero from the Diocese of Juigalpa; and Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón from the Diocese of Estelí.
Molina also shared with ACI Prensa that Father Salvador López of the Diocese of Matagalpa is missing, although it has not been confirmed whether he too was abducted.
According to other Nicaraguan media outlets, including Despacho505, three other priests have been arrested: Father Antonio López, Father Francisco Tercero, and Fray Ramón Morras, as well as Deacon Ervin Aguirre.
Molina said that Fr. Valle, administrator “ad omnia” of the Diocese of Estelí, was first “abducted,” “interrogated,” and “placed under surveillance in a Catholic Church formation house,” Catholic News Agency reported. The other priests were arrested days afterward without official accusations levied against them by authorities because “they have not committed any crime,” according to the attorney.
She further shared that the priests “were violently abducted and taken from their rectories in the middle of the night,” and that in some cases their “property was raided and technological items were stolen.”
Per CNA, attorneys have attributed the arrests to Ortega and his wife Vice President Rosario Murillo’s “hat(red)” for “everything that has to do with religion, with the Catholic faith, and mainly with the Diocese of Matagalpa, where almost the majority of these priests who were abducted belong.”
Matagalpa is the diocese of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a human rights champion and critic of the Ortega dictatorship. The Catholic cleric was kept under house arrest by the regime for months and was then sentenced to 26 years in prison for being “a traitor to the homeland” after a judicial procedure that was denounced around the globe, including by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, chair of the House Global Health, Global Human Rights. Álvarez was deported to Rome in January, and now lives there in exile.
Molina noted that the arrests of the Nicaraguan priests could “revenge” against Álvarez, “who, despite having remained silent since leaving prison, is considered by the dictatorship to be its main enemy.”
The lawyer has also highlighted the fact that “there is no order from a judge stating that they are under house arrest,” adding, “They are all unable to leave and unable to carry out their daily activities, as they had been doing in their respective parishes.”
The arrests are the latest episode in ongoing persecution of the Catholic Church by the authoritarian Ortega regime. Last month, the government revoked the legal status of the international Catholic broadcaster Radio Maria.