2023-08-24 05:18:00
Nicaragua announced on Wednesday the cancellation of the legal personality of the Jesuits and the confiscation of all their assets in the country in the frame of a series of measures taken by the regime of Daniel Ortega as an attempt by the Government to “suffocate” the Catholic Church in that nation.
The decision was communicated by the government through the Ministry of the Interiorwhere it was argued that the Society of Jesus did not present its financial statements for the last three years and its board of directors has been “expired” since March 2020, which means violations of the law and lack of transparency in their operations. In addition, the attorney general’s office was instructed to convey all movable and immovable property of the Jesuits on behalf of the State.
For its part, the Central American Province of the Society of Jesus, which represents the Jesuits in the region, He said that the order in Nicaragua was not given an opportunity to “legitimate defense” and that there is no impartial authority that stops what he called “totally unjustified and arbitrary abuses of authority.”
President Daniel Ortega, accompanied by his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, delivers a speech to supporters in Managua, Nicaragua, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga)
“This new aggression is framed in a national context of systematic repression,” he defended himself in a statement. “It confirms that all this is aimed at the full establishment of a totalitarian regime,” he stressed.
The new coup against the Jesuits by the government of the Sandinista Ortega, in power since 2007, follows the seizure in mid-August of assets of the UCA, the Jesuit university in the country, including facilities and bank accounts, alleging that the institution has functioned as a “center of terrorism.”
The UCA was the main private institution of higher education in Nicaragua and alma mater of many youth leaders who led protests against the government in 2018 that left more than 300 dead, according to human rights organizations.
FILE – Demonstrators protest outside the Jesuit Central American University of Nicaragua, UCA, demanding 6 percent of its national budget in Managua, Nicaragua, on August 2, 2018. The Jesuits announced on Wednesday, August 16, 2023 that the Nicaraguan government He ordered the confiscation of the assets of the UCA, considered the most important and prestigious private university in the country. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File)Arnulfo Franco – AP
The United States condemned the confiscation of UCA assets as a “continued repression of religious figures and institutions” by the Nicaraguan government, saying it represents a further erosion of democratic norms in the Central American country.
In addition, the superior general of the Jesuits worldwide, the priest Arturo Sosa, said that the The closure of the university was part of a government attempt to “suffocate” the Catholic Church and to the civic institutions of the Central American country.
The Ortega government, whose re-election in 2021 for a fourth consecutive term in power was internationally condemned for being seen as an attack on democracy, turned its attention to the Jesuits after they criticized the way in which the president repressed the protest. community in 2018.
Since then, the president launched a campaign against the religious, which has intensified this year despite the mediation between the protest leaders and his administration.
Until now, the government has kept four priests and Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a strong critic of Ortega and one of the most influential religious members of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, in prison.
With information from Archyde.com
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