Violent Persecution of Christians in Nicaragua Part of Regional ‘Transformations’

The Catholic church has been an enduring symbol of Nicaragua’s resistance to the regime of President Daniel Ortega since 2018. Consequently, the institution’s peaceful defiance has firmly placed church leaders and the faithful in Ortega’s crosshairs.

Tensions escalated between the Catholic church and Ortega on March 18 when the Vatican closed its embassy in Managua.

Earlier that week, Ortega lashed out at Pope Francis, who compared the president’s administration to a Nazi dictatorship during an interview with the Argentine news organization Infobae.

Ortega denounced Catholic leaders sympathetic to the opposition as “terrorists” and called the Catholic church a “mafia.”

The Pope’s remarks were a response to more than 400 attacks against the Catholic church, priests, bishops, and parishioners over the past five years.

Ongoing assaults by police and other actors within Ortega’s regime have resulted in dozens of church leaders fleeing the country, lest they face imprisonment.

Among these is Bishop Rolando Alvarez, who was sentenced to 26 years in prison in February for “treason” and spreading “fake news” about Ortega’s administration.

“The Catholic church is the last, the loudest voice against his regime,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) said during a March 22 subcommittee hearing.

Some of the strikes against the faithful include the siege of the Church of the Divine Mercy in 2018.

Nicaraguan police and paramilitary actors hammered the church for 15 hours with bullets while 200 students, volunteers, religious leaders, and journalists huddled inside under gunfire that killed at least two people.

Months of university student-led protests against the Ortega regime spurred the attack. In total, the 2018 protests left more than 300 civilians dead.

In 2020, one of Ortega’s agents threw a bomb into a Managua cathedral, destroying a 400-year-old sacred icon of Christ.

Last year, Ortega dissolved hundreds of NGOs and expelled 18 Catholic nuns from their missions in poverty-stricken areas of the capital. His administration also closed 19 Catholic TV and radio stations in 2022.

Just last month, Ortega exiled 222 political prisoners to the United States. Among them were priests, key opposition leaders, and former presidential candidates.

“From Managua, the message is clear. Ortega has made Nicaragua a prison for anyone who kneels to God the father,” Salazar said.

Lifting The Veil

“I think Ortega has ratcheted up the authoritarian manner since 2018. Unfortunately, I think that will remain,” Joseph Humire told The Epoch Times.

Humire is the executive director of the Washington thinktank Center for a Secure Free Society. He said Ortega’s behavior in Nicaragua follows a predictable path of authoritarian leaders in the region, which he called the “14-year benchmark.”

Historically, Latin American officials have a time frame where they maintain the appearance of running a democracy. According to Humire, that’s usually about 14 years. After that, he says a leader’s true intentions are revealed.

“You either change governments or you lift the veil,” he said.

Humire noted that Ortega has been selling the socialist utopia angle to Nicaraguans since his return to office in 2007. Though stark economics don’t support his vision.

Nicaragua has remained a desperately poor country, dogged by an economic crisis that began in 2018 and minimal foreign investment outside fellow draconian allies like Russia, China, and Iran.

Coupled with the second-highest poverty rates in the region, Ortega’s passionate speeches about strength and nationalism are reaching fewer ears these days.

Some Nicaraguans believe this is the impetus for Ortega’s crackdowns on the Catholic church. Because maintaining a vice-like grip on power means silencing dissent from any source.

“Bishop Alvarez is in prison simply because, from the pulpit, he expressed the following beliefs: ‘A Christian cannot have false neutralities. He who remains silent in the face of human rights violations has already decided,” former Nicaragua presidential candidate and political prisoner, Felix Maradiaga, told the U.S. Congress on March 22.

But Ortega’s persecution of Christians isn’t limited to those who speak out against his authority. In recent months, Maradiaga said there had been incidents where Sandanista police forbid Christians from receiving communion in the church.

Maradiaga called Ortega a “Relic of the Cold War. He embodies a legacy of oppression against human dignity.”

Grand Transformations

Ortega is a former, Sandinista revolutionary who helped end the Somoza family’s 44-year rule in 1979. Afterward, he ushered in a new era of extreme leftist rule via the Sandinista National Liberation Front—known as the FSLN—with the support of Cuba and Russia.

“The FSLN was actually founded and organized in Cuba. These totalitarian regimes see the Catholic regime as the true spiritual and philosophical opposition to their designs,” regional analyst and author Dr. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat told The Epoch Times.

Boronat says that while Ortega’s FSLN has Cuban roots, it has always been more of a “violent, esoteric Marxist cult” than a traditional communist party.

Though both appear to share a common desire to eradicate religion and faith.

“It has a deep-seated rejection of Catholicism at its root for both spiritual and political reasons,” Boronat said, adding Ortega’s FSLN has a long-term plan for totalitarian rule based on Cuba’s Castro dynasty and the Chinese Communist Party.

Humire shares this sentiment, saying Ortega’s political and religious persecution will become the “norm” in Nicaragua and other countries with entrenched authoritarian leaders.

“That’s the lesson from Russia and China,” he said, adding, “We’re living in a period of history where grand transformations are taking place.”

More than that, he says Ortega’s actions are symptomatic of big regional changes. Some of these include expanded relations with China, Russia, and Iran. It’s a situation Humire says the United States can’t afford to ignore.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) also expressed concern over the Ortega regime after the chain of violent attacks on Nicaragua’s Christians.

“Under President Ortega, Nicaragua has become a pariah dictatorship in league with other human rights abusers like Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and the Peoples’ Republic of China,” Smith said.