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Even as silent witnesses to new routines, the walls of the confiscated San Luis Gonzaga Major Seminary of Philosophy, southeast of the city of Matagalpa, still hold the echoes of early-morning prayers and the joy of seminarians who spent their free time growing staple crops and some vegetables for self-consumption.
Where young men were once trained for the priesthood, the Niños Héroes de Matagalpa Technological Center now operates. It was established by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo as part of its offensive against the Church in Nicaragua, particularly targeting the Diocese of Matagalpa, which is now directed from exile by Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
An investigation by CONFIDENCIAL confirms that the dictatorship has stolen at least 39 properties from the Catholic Church in Nicaragua between February 2022 and November 2025. The massive theft includes eight schools, six university campuses, eight religious residences, eight plots of land, farms or estates, three pastoral centers, and four social projects serving the most vulnerable populations.
The Diocese of Matagalpa had three properties taken: the La Cartuja Diocesan Pastoral Center, the San Luis Gonzaga Major Seminary of Philosophy, and the episcopal curia, where Bishop Rolando Álvarez lived. In all three cases, there was no legal justification; they were simply seized in an act of revenge against the diocese of the bishop who was imprisoned, stripped of citizenship, and exiled for being a prophetic voice of the Catholic Church.
Seminary Cost Estimated Around $3 Million
The San Luis Gonzaga Seminary occupied part of a four-block plot donated to the Diocese of Matagalpa during the episcopate of Monsignor Leopoldo José Brenes Solórzano, who was appointed Archbishop of Managua in 2005. The building—approximately 800 square meters—was constructed during the episcopate of Monsignor Jorge Solórzano Pérez, current Bishop of Granada.
In their free time, seminarians of that era helped with earthworks and unloading construction materials, recalls a priest trained at that seminary and currently in exile, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals against his family and the Church in Nicaragua.
During Monsignor Álvarez’s episcopate, the training center was elevated to the status of Major Seminary of Philosophy. In 2022, it housed 49 seminarians from the dioceses of Matagalpa and Siuna.
But the formation was abruptly interrupted on January 20, 2025, when the police and officials from the renamed General Prosecutor’s Office forcibly removed them and took over the property, now converted into an alleged technological center offering courses and technical high school programs under the political indoctrination of Ortega and Murillo.
The value of the seminary—including land and building—exceeds $3 million, according to the minimum price range in the area, estimated between $700 and $1,000 per square meter, according to a real estate agent who requested anonymity.
The Episcopal Curia Where Bishop Álvarez Was Arrested
In the heart of the city, the history of the Matagalpa bishopric—which also served as the episcopal residence—reveals another stark contrast. Where there once was a small chapel, there is now a pharmacy operated by Servicios Médicos Especializados S.A. (SERMESA), which manages the state-acquired medical companies through the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS).
The same building was the site of Monsignor Álvarez’s confinement t between August 4 and 19, 2022. The bishop stayed there with priests, seminarians, and laypeople until police officers forcibly moved him to Managua, where he was isolated in La Modelo prison until his exile to the Vatican in January 2024, following more than 500 days under house arrest and imprisonment.
The building covers over 2,000 square meters. In that area, property prices can reach up to $1,000 per square meter, according to a real estate specialist. Considering the building’s historical value, the total worth would exceed $2 million.
During Monsignor Solórzano Pérez’s episcopate, $200,000 was also invested in restorations, including the San Juan Pablo II hall, which previously housed the diocesan Radio Hermanos.
La Cartuja: Decades of History and Heritage Value
In the community of Molino Norte, the La Cartuja Diocesan Pastoral Center has also been redirected. For decades, the diocese used the space for spiritual retreats, gatherings, and meetings of lay movements. It was confiscated in January 2025 and converted into a satellite campus of the National Agrarian University (UNA).
La Cartuja includes a main building of more than 2,000 square meters and a smaller structure of approximately 185 square meters. During Monsignor Solórzano Pérez’s episcopate, it was restored with an investment of about $300,000. According to the real estate agent’s estimates, the value of La Cartuja easily exceeds $2 million, not including the land, which spans roughly four blocks.
In April 2025, CONFIDENCIAL revealed that UNA spent 730,848 córdobas to open its new branch at the Diocesan Pastoral Center. The “investment” was used to paint the confiscated property, build a brazier, and install a new sign, according to three public procurement records on the Electronic Administrative Contracting System (Siscae).
The property was renamed the “Father and Commander Camilo Torres Restrepo University Center for Agricultural Technologies and Agro-export Technologies,” and is promoted as a government investment in the education system—while omitting that it was stolen from the Catholic Church.
The estimated value of the confiscations does not include the inventory of relics, religious images, paintings, historical furniture, libraries, and pastoral archives that the diocese safeguarded in these buildings for decades.
In La Cartuja, for example, there was a painting known as La Madonna, believed to have been a gift from Pope Saint Paul VI to Monsignor Julián Luis Barni Spotti, the fifth bishop of Matagalpa (1970–1982), who promoted the construction of the pastoral center.
In the Ateneo of the Episcopal Residence there was also an old canvas of the Holy Family, an oil painting attributed to the 17th-century Spanish artist Bartolomé Murillo.
A La Salle sports field was also confiscated in Jinotega
Further north, in the municipality of San Sebastián de Yalí, Jinotega, the regime confiscated the Santa Luisa de Marillac Technical Institute, placing it under the administration of the Ministry of Education. The building covers more than 2,000 square meters and is also valued at over one million dollars.
In Jinotega, another confiscation had remained out of the public eye until now: the sports field of the La Salle Diocesan School, which was declared a public-use property by the Municipal Council in mid-2024. The municipality left open the possibility of building a sports complex on that 30,000-square-meter plot, where local youth still go to play mainly baseball and soccer.
With this, the number of properties confiscated from the Catholic Church—dioceses, religious orders, and lay organizations—rises from 39 to 40. However, the real figure is higher, as several congregations choose to remain silent to avoid further seizures or increased reprisals against their members.
The confiscations follow a pattern of theft and usurpation that includes canceling the legal status of religious associations in order to outlaw them and, in many cases, expel them from the country in an expedited manner. The property is then transferred or assigned to state institutions to “launder” the theft as a public asset. The operation is completed with cosmetic measures, using public funds to repaint the façade, put up new signs, and furnish the building with repurposed items. The final act is an inauguration ceremony, almost always with a new name linked to religious figures or Sandinista guerrillas, claiming that these are public works of the “good government.”
A Heritage Uprooted, And Worth More Than Its Material Value
The real estate value of these five confiscated properties in Matagalpa and Jinotega exceeds nine million dollars. That figure grows even higher when accounting for renovations, gardens, coffee areas, archives, libraries, historical furniture, relics, and religious images that were also seized.
Other properties confiscated from the Catholic Church and lay organizations in Jinotega, as listed by CONFIDENCIAL, include: the Juan Roberto Zarruk Biological Station—seized along with eight other properties across Nicaragua from the Society of Jesus in August 2023; the Nazareth Clinic in San Rafael del Norte, confiscated from the Nazareth Association for the Integral Development of the Family in January 2025; and an office, a plot of land, and a pavilion belonging to the Odorico D’ Andrea Foundation, also seized in January 2025.
Sin embargo, la dimensión de las pérdidas no se limita al valor inmobiliario. Desde Iowa, el sacerdote nicaragüense Nils de Jesús Hernández, párroco de la iglesia Reina de la Paz, sigue cada noticia que llega desde Nicaragua y observa un daño que no se mide en metros ni en avalúos. El párroco conoce de primera mano el sentido pastoral de esos espacios y lo expresa con claridad: “Los más afectados son los estudiantes, los niños, los jóvenes y también los futuros religiosos”.
He stresses that every building constructed over decades had a specific purpose within the Church’s mission—one that does not survive once the State takes over the property.
“The Church administers these goods, but they exist to serve the people of God,” he says, convinced that breaking that chain also breaks the community processes that once grew out of those places.
When he weighs the impact of each closure, each expulsion, and each new official sign, he sums it up in a sentence that carries all the human implications of the dispossession: “The damage is enormous… and this criminal government, guilty of crimes against humanity, has no interest in the harm it is inflicting on Nicaragua.”
Another Nicaraguan priest, exiled since 2022 and careful to protect his identity for his family’s safety, sees the same reality from the forced silence shared by so many clergy. For him, every confiscated building represents yet another fracture in the daily life of the communities that relied on those spaces.
“This has a social impact and an ecclesial impact,” he notes, with the bluntness of someone who witnessed the closure of charitable pharmacies, dispensaries, Caritas programs, and centers where the Church had accompanied the most vulnerable families for years.
