The priest Floriano Ceferino Vargasfrom the diocese of Bluefields in the southern Caribbean of Nicaragua, was expelled from his country after being arrested by the National Police in the midst of the growing repression of Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship against representatives of the Catholic Church, as the organization denounced this Tuesday. Blue and White Monitoring.
“The priest Floriano Ceferino Vargas was exiled and sent to Panama“, indicated the NGO, which defines itself as an interdisciplinary team that records and consolidates complaints of human rights violations linked to the political context that Nicaragua has been experiencing since April 2018.
The priest, who is in charge of the San Martín de Porres parish, in the municipality of Nueva Guinea, in the Autonomous Region of the Southern Caribbean, was arrested after celebrating a mass on the afternoon of Sunday, December 1.
“Exile is a crime against humanity“, for his part, stated in X the denationalized peasant leader Medardo Mairena, who confirmed that the priest, who heads a parish where he is originally from, He was exiled to Panama.
At the moment, neither the Nicaraguan regime nor the National Police have offered their versions regarding the complaint of this detention and subsequent expulsion, and they generally do not comment.
The case occurs after the bishops of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panamamembers of the Episcopal Secretariat of Central America (Sedac), will call for a “Central American day of prayer for the Church in Nicaragua” on December 8. ‘We shout with Nicaragua’. If one member suffers, we all suffer with him (1Cor 12:26)”, who “faces a challenging reality”.
Until August of this year, at least 245 religious had been expelled or forced into exileaccording to the study “Nicaragua: A persecuted Church?”, by the exiled researcher Martha Patricia Molina.
Among those affected, the bishops stand out Rolando Alvarezde Matagalpa, e Isidoro Morafrom Siuna, who were declared “traitors to the country” and stripped of their nationality. The apostolic nuncio, Waldemar Stanislaw Summer dayand another 136 priests were also expelled or pressured to leave Nicaragua.
La ONG Nicaragua Collective Never Again described this situation as the worst repression suffered by the Catholic Church in the history of the country under the current sandinista regime.
He Papa Francisco He also spoke out expressing his closeness to the faithful of Nicaragua. In a letter published on Monday, the pontiff acknowledged the “difficulties, uncertainties and deprivations” facing the Church in the country and stated: “I am with you”.
The relationships between Vatican and the Ortega regime reached levels of great hostility. Francis described the regime as Nicaragua like a “rude dictatorship” and criticized its “imbalance.”
For its part, Ortega accused the Vatican of being part of the “conglomerate of fascism”, dissolving and expropriating the jesuit orderto which the Pope belongs.
Vargas’ case is not isolated. On November 13, Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrerapresident of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaraguawas expelled after criticizing the sacrilege of a Sandinista mayor at a mass.
With his departure to Guatemala, he became the third bishop deported in a yearevidencing the intensification of the conflict between the regime and the Catholic Church.
(With information from EFE)
