At the end of the first Angelus prayer in 2024 follows the Pope's appeal for the Central American country, where 14 priests and one bishop have been arrested so far and where Bishop Álvarez de Matagalpa has been in prison without due process since February 2022. The Pope expressed his closeness to the country's Church and invited the faithful to urgent prayer: “I hope that we will always seek the path of dialogue to overcome difficulties.”
Salvatore Cernuzio Vatican City
Pain and concern in the Pope's words about the situation in Nicaragua, “where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom”. In the Angelus prayer of January 1, 2024, Francis looks at the Central American country, where, after episodes of violence against churches and priests in 2018 and the expulsions of the nuncio and around 220 other religious in 2022, there has been a new wave of arrests and arrests for months Restrictions on religious demonstrations.
The path of dialogue
The Pope assures the kidnapped priests and bishops, their families and “the entire church in the country” of his “closeness in prayer”:
“I also invite everyone present here and all the people of God to earnest prayer and hope that we will always seek the path of dialogue to overcome difficulties. Let us pray for Nicaragua today.”
New arrests
In the last few days alone, at least 14 priests have been kidnapped the last of them yesterday evening, after the celebration of the endofyear mass , two seminarians and the Bishop of Siuna, Dom Isidoro del Carmen Mora Ortega. The prelate was arrested after praying for Dom Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, Bishop of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, sentenced to 26 years in prison without due process and detained since February last year.
The Pope's appeal to Bishop Álvarez
It was precisely for Álvarez that the Pope prayed and asked for prayers during the Angelus prayer on February 12, 2022: Francisco expressed “concern” for the prelate “whom I value so much” and also for all the people “deported to the United States.” . “I pray for them and for all who suffer in this dear nation,” the Pope said, citing the Virgin Mary’s intercession, “to open the hearts of political leaders and all citizens to the sincere search for peace, which is born of truth, justice, freedom and love and is achieved through the patient practice of dialogue.”
UN complaint
Pope Francis spoke again about the difficulties in Nicaragua and in particular about the situation of the Bishop of Matagalpa in an interview with the Argentine newspaper Infobae on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his pontificate, denouncing Nicaragua's lack of balance among those who lead the country. “We have a bishop in prison. A very serious, very capable man. He wanted to bear his witness and did not accept exile,” the pope said.
Today, on the first day of the New Year, a new appeal for a wounded people and a wounded Church in a country where, as recently denounced by the United Nations, there is a risk of a dangerous deviation from the rule of law.