The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, kidnapped and expelled Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, priest of the diocese of Bluefields, from Nicaragua.
According to Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, on the social network X, “Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the Church of San Martín de Porres in Nueva Guinea, has been banished by the Sandinista regime of the Ortega-Murillos.”
After pointing out that “exile is a crime against humanity,” Mairena indicated that the priest’s destination country is “the sister republic of Panama.”
Lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church? reports that 870 attacks by the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship against the Catholic Church between 2018 and 2024, said it is not known why Father Vargas was kidnapped.
However, Molina said, “generally, the kidnappings of priests and bishops are without any reason. Just for being a religious person in Nicaragua, the dictatorship can kidnap you.”
The author of the report also indicated that it is possible that the priest had made “some comment that they [the dictatorship] consider hostile to the supposed revolution, which they constantly say must be defended.”
The researcher also commented that, in the midst of everything, it is good to know that the priest “will not be in Nicaragua’s prisons, where more than 40 mechanisms of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are practiced.”
The priest was reportedly arrested after celebrating Mass in his parish.
The information about Father Vargas’ kidnapping was released on the same day that Pope Francis sent a letter to the Catholics of Nicaragua.