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Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio Báez, a vocal critic of the regime led by spouses Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, denounced on Sunday, June 7, 2026, that an “irrational and aging power” is depriving Nicaragua of its freedom and its future.
During his homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi at a church in the United States, where he has lived in exile for the past seven years, the Catholic leader reflected on Israel’s journey through the desert toward the Promised Land as a way of examining the different forms of human suffering. He linked that experience to the reality faced by Nicaraguans both inside and outside their country.
“Let us think of the desert our people are crossing, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let us think of the desert of uprootedness and exile that so many of us have experienced,” the bishop said.
Nicaragua has been governed since 2007 by Ortega, an 80-year-old former Sandinista guerrilla commander, amid accusations of electoral fraud and of eliminating political opponents to avoid competition. Since 2017, Ortega has governed alongside Murillo.
The Sandinista government has also been accused by international and domestic organizations of violating Nicaraguans’ human rights and restricting religious freedom, freedom of association and assembly, as well as freedom of the press and expression.
In his homily, the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua—whom the late Pope Francis instructed to leave Nicaragua in 2019 for security reasons—said that despite these realities, “there is no desert in which God abandons us to our own strength alone, without sustaining and nourishing us through the power of His love.”
Báez argued that in a world filled with broken promises and deceptive words aimed at manipulating consciences, “Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with light and truth.”
“In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. In the presence of deranged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and prevents us from being deceived,” he continued.
He therefore urged Catholics to nourish themselves through faith in Jesus, trust in His love, draw strength from His words and His way of living and loving, and allow themselves to be transformed by Him.
“One cannot receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, promote sterile divisions, or turn a blind eye to injustice,” he said.
