ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 19, 2023 / 05:49 am
The Nicaraguan dictatorship reported that it has released 12 priests it had imprisoned and sent them to the Vatican after an agreement was reached with the authorities of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Rolando Álvarez of the Diocese of Matagalpa was not among those released. Álvarez was sentenced on Feb. 10 to 26 years and four months in prison. A day before the sentence, the prelate refused to be part of the group of 222 deportees who were sent to the United States and who were then stripped of their nationality and property in Nicaragua by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.
In a press release dated Oct. 18, the Ortega regime announced that the release of the 12 priests took place “after fruitful conversations with the Holy See.” The priests, the release said, are headed to the Vatican and “traveled to Rome, Italy, this afternoon.”
In the release, the government stated that the agreement was reached “with the intercession of high authorities of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua and the Vatican.”