Ortega regime confiscates parochial school, expels nuns from Nicaragua

On Monday, May 30, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo seized a school run by the religious order Hijas de Santa Luisa de Marillac and ordered the expulsion of the three nuns who administered the school. The denunciation was made public by exiled Nicaraguan researcher and attorney Martha Patricia Molina.

Molina, author of the study: Nicaragua: Una Iglesia Perseguida? [“Nicaragua: a Persecuted Church?”], affirmed in a message that the Nicaraguan government “confiscated the Santa Luisa de Marillac Technical Institute” in the municipality of San Sebastian de Yali, located in the northern Jinotega department.

According to the investigator, the school has been in existence for 31 years and was founded by the apostolic group Hijas de Santa Luisa de Marillac. She also informed that the Nicaraguan authorities had ordered the expulsion of the three nuns from the congregation. Neighbors of the school confirmed that the installations were currently occupied by police agents.

Last week, the Nicaraguan government also assumed control over the Susana Lopez Carazo school, one of the emblematic works of the Hermanas Dominicas de la Anuncianata [Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin]. The school is located in the Rivas department, in the far south of Nicaragua. According to the digital newspaper Confidencial, the regime also expelled the three nuns from that congregation.

Police continue their “investigations” of the Catholic Church

 On Saturday, May 27, the police accused the Nicaraguan Catholic Church of “money laundering,” and ordered Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes to present documents detailing transactions from the bank accounts belonging to the country’s dioceses. These accounts have been frozen by the government.

The police claimed that, in the course of their investigation, they encountered “hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden in bags, in installations belonging to the different [Catholic] dioceses.”  They also accused the Church authorities of “illegal withdrawal of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered frozen.”

Last week, the police also announced that they were investigating Father Jaime Montesinos, a parish priest from the Matagalpa dioceses, formerly led by Monsignor Rolando Alvarez. Alvarez, bishop of Matagalpa and Esteli, is currently in prison for “treason to the homeland,” serving a summary sentence of 26 years after he refused to be banished from the country.

The regime is also investigating two other priests for “administrative matters” related to the now-dissolved Caritas Dioceses of Esteli in the north of Nicaragua.

Relations between the Ortega regime and the Catholic Church are extremely tense, marked by the expulsion and imprisonment of priests, the prohibition of religious activities, and the suspension of diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Pope Francis called the Sandinista government a “vulgar dictatorship” in a March 2023 interview with the news site Infobae, describing “the person who directs” the Central American country as “unbalanced.”

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times