Bishop Rolando Álvarez is reported to be resisting government pressure to leave Nicargua.
Mgr José Antonio Canales, bishop of Danlí in Honduras, said: “The information we have is that Mgr Álvarez had been offered his freedom, but outside Nicaragua. What they don’t want is critical voices within Nicaragua.”
Bishop Álvarez was barricaded in his diocesan office in Matagalpa for two weeks in August 2022, before being taken to house arrest in his family home in Managua.
On 10 January this year he was brought before a judge in Managua and remanded for trial at a later date.
He was refused a defence lawyer of his choice and has not had access to the evidence supporting the charge against him of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”.
Analysts in Nicaragua say that a “diplomatic operation” is under way with the Vatican, via the Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, to find a “solution” to the problem of Bishop Álvarez.
Former minister of education Humberto Belli said that an order from Pope Francis to Bishop Álvarez to leave the country was unlikely as it would be seen as a concession to the government.
Lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, who has carried out a detailed analysis of attacks on the Church in Nicaragua, said that the Nicaraguan bishops conference had shown “absence and irresponsible lack of concern at the persecution of the Church”.
On the possibility of Bishop Álvarez leaving Nicaragua, she said: “I couldn’t say what the impact on them would be, but for the Church in general the cost would be high because he is a prophetic voice.”
The Nicaraguan bishops’ conference has made no public statement about the situation of Bishop Álvarez since he was placed under house arrest in Managua in August 2022, when they described it as “a painful wound the Church in Nicaragua is suffering”.
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