The Nicaraguan government last week said it would release 12 priests from prison and send them to Rome.
After the announcement 18 October the Vatican confirmed that it had received the priests and said that they “would be given accommodation in premises belonging to the Diocese of Rome”.
The government in Managua said that this was a gesture to “strengthen the faith and hope of Catholics, who make up the majority of Nicaraguans”.
The Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, claimed that the release was the result of an amicable compromise between the Church and the government.
“What happened was a dialogue between the Holy See and the government. It is a joy for all of us that the lads can now go and carry out their apostolate,” he said.
However, commentators suggested that it was in fact an attempt to reduce international pressure on Nicaragua because of its persecution of the Church.
Fr José Maria Tojeira SJ, the spokesman for the Jesuits in Central America, told the Costa Rica-based newspaper El Confidential that the expulsion of the 12 priests “is a symptom of the weakness of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship”.
Speaking from El Salvador, where he was previously the rector of the Jesuit university in San Salvador, he explained that having priests in prison “is a constant crisis for a dictatorship that calls itself ‘Christian and in solidarity’” and amounted to “a permanent cry of protest against the regime”.
The group released does not include the Bishop of Matagalpa Rolando Álvarez, who is serving a 26-year prison sentence. He has previously made clear that he does not wish to leave the country.
The imprisonment and expulsion of clergy has led to shortages of priests, especially in the Diocese of Estelí, to which six of the expelled twelve belong and where Bishop Álvarez is the apostolic administrator.
Fr Tojeira repeated an earlier call for Bishop Rolando Álvarez to be made a cardinal “in recognition of his courage”.
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