The communist regime in Nicaragua banished Monsignor Carlos Herrera, Bishop of Jinotega and head of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN), from the country, local outlets reported Thursday.
Bishop Herrera, who reportedly had been at the head of his Jinogeta episcopate for more than 19 years, is the third Catholic Bishop exiled from the country by communist dictator Daniel Ortega in 2024 so far as part of the dictator’s relentless “war” against Catholicism in Nicaragua.
According to Nicaraguan outlets, the Ortega regime banished Bishop Herrera days after he criticized Sandinista Mayor of Jinotega Leonidas Centeno for disrespecting a Mass he presided over by having the municipality play loud music during the service, an act that the Bishop branded as “sacrilegious.”
Vatican News confirmed that the 75-year-old clergyman’s banishment came after the bishop expressed his frustration with the Jinotega government’s actions on Sunday, November 10, which disrupted that day’s religious services.
“What the mayor and all the local authorities are doing is sacrilegious … We ask God’s forgiveness for them and for ourselves,” Bishop Herrera said on Sunday.
The bishop’s remarks were reportedly livestreamed on the official Facebook page of the Diocese of Jinotega. The Diocese’s Facebook page – used to broadcast Sunday Masses, Eucharistic Thursdays, and other religious events – was taken down on Wednesday.
Two ecclesiastical sources, under strict condition of anonymity, told the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa that the bishop was kidnapped after a meeting with CEN’s other remaining bishops in the capital city of Managua and then banished to Guatemala.
“The bishop was expelled from Nicaragua to Guatemala, he was in a meeting in Managua with the bishops. It was not with the clergy of his diocese as reported,” the source said.
According to the Nicaraguan independent outlet Mosaico CSI, Bishop Herrera is presently at a residence of the Order of Friars Minor in Guatemala.
“What is happening in the diocese of Jinotega is regrettable. It is a conspiracy between the commissioner Horacio Rocha, the paramilitary and mayor Leonidas Centeno and the priest Rafael Rios. The three of them were always after Bishop Herrera’s head,” Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, who has been documenting the Ortega regime’s persecution of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, told the newspaper 100% Noticias on Thursday.
Communist Dictator Daniel Ortega, who identifies as Catholic, has spearheaded a relentless persecution of Catholicism in Nicaragua in recent years as punishment for the Nicaraguan Catholic Church’s support of the 2018 pro-democracy and anti-communist wave of protests.
The persecution campaign intensified in 2022 after the Ortega regime unjustly imprisoned and subsequently banished several members of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, banning numerous Catholic processions and traditional festivities from taking place in the country. Ortega also forced the closure of Catholic media across the nation and forcefully seized bank accounts, universities, and other assets of the Catholic Church.
A report published by a the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) in July detailed several cases of imprisoned Catholic priests and other members of the Church subject to physical and mental torture as well as cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment during their imprisonment. The report also revealed that the Ortega regime banned nearly 8,000 Catholic processions between 2023 and 2024.
Bishop Herrera is the third bishop exiled by the Ortega regime in 2024 so far and the fourth bishop to have forcefully left the nation since the start of Ortega’s persecution campaign against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church in 2018.
In January, the Ortega regime banished Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of Matagalpa. Álvarez, a vocal critic of the Nicaraguan communist regime, was imprisoned in August 2022 after Ortega regime officials raided his parish and sentenced him to 26 years in prison in February 2023 on “treason” charges. Like other banished political dissidents of the Ortega regime, the ruling communists stripped Bishop Álvarez of his Nicaraguan citizenship, rendering him a stateless person in clear violation of international law.
In addition to Bishop Álvarez, Monsignor Isidoro del Carmen Mora Ortega, Bishop of Siuna, was banished alongside Álvarez, 15 priests, and two seminarians on that date. Bishop Mora was arrested by the Ortega regime in late December 2023 after participating in a mass celebrating the 99th anniversary of the Diocese of Matagalpa, where he offered prayers for the then-imprisoned Matagalpa bishop.
Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, was forced into exile in 2019 and left Nicaragua at the request of Pope Francis over concerns for his personal safety after Báez received several death threats.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.