Nicaraguan police have banned a Catholic procession and pilgrimage in the capital of Managua on Saturday citing internal security reasons, the archdiocese said on Friday as the crackdown on the Church intensifies.
In response, the archdiocese called for the country’s faithful to spend Friday praying and fasting and attend Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua (pictured) on Saturday.
The banned procession was to be a closing ceremony for the country’s Marian Congress. It was also a send-off for the Portuguese statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
The move came just a week after the Ortega government took seven Catholic radio stations off the air.
The stations were led by Bishop Rolando Alvarez, head of the Diocese of Matagalpa and Esteli. He is an outspoken Ortega critic.
Alvarez is the subject of an investigation for alleged conspiracy. He has been trapped in the diocese’s episcopal palace, surrounded by police, for two weeks.
Relations between the Catholic Church and the Nicaraguan government have been tense since the Church tried to serve as a mediator in 2018 after an Ortega-backed social security proposal sparked nationwide protests.
The bishop has criticised the government for its repression of the populace. In turn, the government has accused the bishop of “organising violent groups” and encouraging them “to carry out acts of hate against the population”.
In his homily for the August 11 Mass celebrated in the chancery chapel, Bishop Álvarez recalled that Christ taught that one must not harbour resentment. But you must always forgive, defeating “evil with the force and power of good”.
“We are here, gathered together and under detention, already on the eighth day that we are spending today,” he said at the beginning of the Eucharist. “Our eleven lives are in the hands of the Lord.”
Álvarez assured that “painful experiences do not happen in vain; they don’t fall into a void. These experiences are offered to the Lord, and God returns them in blessings for us”.
The prelate said that when you want to harm another person, that “means the devil has managed to penetrate your heart and has managed to enter, infecting your heart. You shouldn’t allow that.”
“Evil is defeated by the power of good. Good is always more powerful. Good is eternally powerful. Evil is tremendously limited, even though it makes more noise,” he noted.
The bishop of Matagalpa encouraged Nicaraguans not to fall into despair since “that’s another temptation we face, because a people without hope is a self-entombed people”.
Instead, he invited the faithful to be “inundated with the hope” of Christ who defeated death.
“Don’t have the slightest doubt that the Lord is blessing you, because he is daily accepting our offering for you. And keep offering your prayers and supplications for us,” he encouraged.