Managua, Aug 6 Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez, accused by the National Police of trying to “organize violent groups” supposedly “with the purpose of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua and attacking the constitutional authorities,” said this Saturday that he finds himself with inner strength and with peace in the heart.
“Here we are gathered and held, and we are always with inner strength and peace in our hearts and the joy that the Risen One gives us, the joy of the one who tells us: cheer up, it’s me, don’t be afraid,” said the hierarch. by offering a telematic mass from the Episcopal Palace in the department of Matagalpa (north), where he has been confined since last Thursday.
Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, is being held in the Episcopal Palace, which is besieged by special police forces, who will not let him out together with six priests and six lay people.
The Police, led by Francisco Díaz, President Daniel Ortega’s brother-in-law, last night accused “the high authorities of the Catholic Church” in the province of Matagalpa, “headed” by Bishop Álvarez, “who, taking advantage of their status as religious leaders, Using the media and social networks, they are trying to organize violent groups.”
According to the Police, the high hierarch would be “inciting” these “violent groups” to “carry out acts of hatred against the population, causing an atmosphere of anxiety and disorder, altering the peace and harmony in the community, with the purpose to destabilize the State of Nicaragua and attack the constitutional authorities”.
The Police said that “it has started an investigation process, in order to determine the criminal responsibility of the people involved in the commission of these criminal acts, of which the Public Ministry and the Judiciary have been informed,” and that ” the people under investigation – which he did not mention – will remain at home”.
BISHOP: HATE IS ANSWERED WITH LOVE
Bishop Álvarez, for whom he is formally in “house arrest,” said he was unaware of what he was being investigated for and that the Police would be the one to make “their own guesses.”
“Remember, dear brothers and sisters: fear paralyzes, despair buries itself, and hate is the death of the heart. Hate is answered with love, despair with living hope, and fear with the strength and courage that gives us the glorious and risen Christ, the Christ of the church,” he stressed.
Likewise, the religious thanked the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (Celam) for the solidarity expressed to him, and the episcopal conferences of Honduras and Costa Rica, as well as the audience that follows his homilies and messages through the digital platform of the diocese of Matagalpa.
On Thursday, Bishop Álvarez asked the Police to let him officiate Mass with his parishioners in a parish, amid friction between the Executive and the Catholic Church.
Then the hierarch left the Episcopal Palace, knelt on the sidewalk and raised his hands to the sky, and received Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament from a collaborator and with the Blessed Sacrament he approached the officials, who withdrew, according to the transmission he made the diocese of Matagalpa in social networks.
The religious accused the Police of not allowing free movement, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and religious freedom, in addition to creating anxiety and shaking the “hearts and the simple faith of our faithful people.”
Relations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church have been marked by friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.
President Ortega has branded as “terrorists” the Nicaraguan bishops who acted as mediators of a national dialogue that sought a peaceful solution to the crisis that the country has been experiencing since April 2018.
Nicaragua has been experiencing a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has been accentuated after the controversial elections last November in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with their main contenders in prison. EFE
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