Archbishop Condemns Nicaragua’s ‘Severe Aggression’ Against Catholic Church

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, has denounced the ongoing aggression against Catholics by the Nicaraguan regime of dictator Daniel Ortega.

In a February 21 statement, Archbishop Broglio praised efforts to welcome Nicaraguan Catholics exiled to the United States, while decrying Ortega’s heinous crackdown on the Church.

Underscoring that Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Álvarez had been “languishing in regime detention since August and fallaciously charged with ‘undermining national integrity and the propagation of false news,’” Broglio noted that Álvarez was then “sentenced to twenty-six years in prison, stripped of his citizenship, and was imposed an exorbitant fine.”

This unjust sentencing “marks yet another escalated human rights violation in the ongoing ordeal the Catholic Church faces in Nicaragua,” the archbishop said, as yet another egregious example of Nicaragua’s “policy of severe aggression against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua — including calculated profanations of the Blessed Sacrament as a means of terrorizing the Nicaraguan faithful.”

In the midst of this darkness, “courageous hope, charity, and solidarity are bearing witness to the enduring vitality of the faith of the people of Nicaragua and among Catholics worldwide supporting the Nicaraguan faithful,” Broglio observed hopefully.

I am “proud and grateful” that the Catholic community of the United States was “among those that mobilized quickly to welcome the Nicaraguan exiles as they were stripped of their citizenship before boarding the plane,” he said, adding rhetorically: “How can any regime deny citizenship to its citizens?”

The archbishop concluded his statement by calling on the U.S. government and other partners to “continue to pursue the release of Bishop Alvarez and the restoration of human rights in Nicaragua.”

Thomas D. Williams is Breitbart Rome Bureau Chief and the author of The Coming Christian Persecution.