Denver Newsroom, Aug 15, 2022 / 13:58 pm
The leftist regime of President Daniel Ortega continued its persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua with several acts of repression over the weekend.
On Saturday, a large procession with the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima was to precede the closing Mass at the Managua cathedral for the Marian Congress titled “Mary, Mother of Hope,” but the regime prohibited the event. Instead, a smaller procession was held in the atrium of the cathedral. Thousands were in attendance, many waving Nicaraguan and Vatican flags and crying out, “Mary is from Nicaragua and Nicaragua belongs to Mary!”
In his homily, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the archbishop of Managua, the country’s capital, stressed that “nothing and no one can take away our love for the Virgin of Fatima because her image is engraved in the mind and heart of each one of us Nicaraguans.”
A delegation from each diocese in the country was to receive a replica statue of Our Lady of Fatima, but on Sunday, Father Erick Diaz, pastor of St. Joseph the Worker parish, and Father Fernando Calero from Our Lady of Fatima parish, both from the town of El Tuma, were prevented by police from leaving for the cathedral in Managua.