After serving nearly a year of his 26 year sentence for treason in a Nicaraguan jail, Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was flown to Rome in January. The high profile bishop known as an outspoken critic of President Ortega’s Sandinista government has been under house arrest since August 2022. He was allowed to leave the country alongside his supporter Bishop Isidoro Mora and a group of priests and seminarians, after a request from the Vatican. It’s the latest development in a relationship between Nicaragua and the Holy See that has grown increasingly tense. President Ortega has had a complicated relationship with Nicaragua’s Catholic clergy ever since he first came to power in the 1979 revolution. It was with the help of the Church that Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, but as his rule became increasingly more authoritarian he steadily repressed any sort of opposition, including critical voices from within the clergy. Mass peaceful protests over social security reforms in 2018 ramped up the repression from the Ortega government in the following years. Opposition leaders, journalists, and prominent leaders from within the R.C.Church were amongst those expelled or advised to leave the country and some like Bishop Álvarez were even imprisoned. The situation has left the Catholic Church in a difficult position. There are no diplomatic ties now between Nicaragua and the Holy See and since the end of the Cold War it appears that the international community has found more pressing concerns. Nicaragua’s Catholic neighbours may have the country on their radars, but how willing they are in supporting the Pope over his concerns for Nicaragua’s Catholic population remains to be seen.

So, this week on The Inquiry we’re asking ‘Can the Vatican stop Nicaragua’s Catholic crackdown?

Contributors: Brandon Van Dyck, Associate Director of the Princeton Initiative in Catholic Thought, The Aquinas Institute, New Jersey, USA Bianca Jagger, President of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Executive Directors Leadership Council of Amnesty International, London Andrea Gagliarducci, Vatican Analyst, EWTN /ACI Group, Rome, Italy Ryan Berg, Director, Americas Programme, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, USA

Presenter: Tanya Beckett Producer: Jill Collins Researcher: Matt Toulson Editor: Tara McDermott Technical Producer: Cameron Ward Broadcast Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley

Image Credit: Mireya Acierto\Getty