At least nine Catholic priests have been kidnapped by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua since July 26. According to a complaint by lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina. These priests “remain under total surveillance” by the National Police, she said.
Molina, author of the report Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church? , shared a list of priests “kidnapped by the Sandinista dictatorship” on her X account on August 5. There are at least nine: Msgr. Ulises Vega Matamoros, Msgr. Edgar Sacasa Sierra, Fr. Víctor Godoy, Fr. Jairo Pravia Flores, Fr. Marlon Velásquez, Fr. Jarvin Torrez and Fr. Raúl Villegas, all of them from the clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa; Fray Silvio Romero, from the Diocese of Juigalpa; and Fr. Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón, from the Diocese of Estelí.
The Nicaraguan researcher reported that Father Salvador López, of the Diocese of Matagalpa, is missing, although it is unknown whether he was also kidnapped by the authorities or has tried to escape the country.
Nicaraguan media outlets such as Despacho505 reported on the arrest of three other priests—Fr. Antonio López, Fr. Francisco Tercero, and Fray Ramón Morras—as well as deacon Ervin Aguirre.
Brother Silvio Romero and Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón. Credit: Parish of Our Today we celebrate the Transfiguration of the Lord, a foretaste of the glory of the Molina said the arrests began on July 26, when Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón, administrator ad omnia of the Diocese of Estelí, was “kidnapped, interrogated” and placed under surveillance in a Catholic Church formation house.
He claimed that the other priests were arrested days later without any formal charges from the authorities, since “they have not committed any crime.”
He also warned that priests “were kidnapped with violence and taken from their rectories in the middle of the night.” He also said that in some cases “their property was raided and technological objects were stolen.”
The lawyer denounced that these arrests were carried out “under the illegality and disproportionate use of force that the National Police and the Nicaraguan riot police always use.”
These arrests, he said, could be motivated because Murillo and Ortega “hate 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 kidnapped belong.”
Matagalpa is the diocese of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a human rights defender and critic of the dictatorship, who was arrested, confined to his house and eventually sentenced to 26 years in prison in a controversial judicial process. Finally, he was deported in January of this year to Rome, where he now lives in exile.
The researcher also suggested that the arrests could be “revenge” against Monsignor Alvarez, “who, despite having remained silent since leaving prison, is considered by the dictatorship to be its main enemy.”
Molina said that all the priests are under de facto arrest, since “there is no order from a judge stating that they are under house arrest. They are all unable to leave and unable to carry out their daily activities, as they had been doing in their respective parishes.”