Latin America’s Catholics Rally to Support the Persecuted in Communist Nicaragua

Catholic leaders throughout Latin America have raised their voices in the past week against the persecution of fellow faithful in Nicaragua, particularly condemning the sentencing of the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, to 26 years in prison for “treason.”

The actions of the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega against Bishop Álvarez are the latest moves in a years-long campaign against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan Catholic bishop Rolando Alvarez speaks to the press at the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas church in Managua, on May 20, 2022. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Bishop Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Sandinista regime and Ortega, was the first member of the Catholic Church arrested when Ortega returned to power in 2007. Álvarez refused to be exiled to the United States when the Sandinista regime banished a group of 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners on February 9, stripping them of their nationality.

The Episcopal…