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The Nicaraguan dictatorship expels three more priests from the country

"The Nicaraguan priest José Miguel Figueroa and the Mexicans Ezequiel Buenfil Batún and David Pérez were kidnapped and later expelled from the country following the cancellation of the legal status of the Foundation."

The frontal attack against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua persists event after the negotiations held with the Vatican that ended in the release last week of 19 priests, including two bishops that the regime had imprisoned. This time, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo kidnapped and expelled three priests belonging to the Missionary Consecrated Foundation of the Holy Savior, confirmed lawyer and author of the report «Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?» Martha Patricia Molina to LA PRENSA.

Molina detailed that since January 14, the priests of the order received threats from the police when they were returning from celebrating a mass at the Parish of Santo Tomás Apóstol in Corinto.

«Since that day, Father Ezequiel Buenfil Batún and Father José Miguel (Erick) Figueroa disappeared and were later expelled. Following the cancellation of the legal status of the Foundation they managed, the police expelled Father David Pérez, who belonged to the same order,» Molina explained.

On Tuesday, January 16, the regime, through the Ministry of the Interior (MINT), revoked the legal status of 16 non-governmental organizations, including the Missionary Consecrated Foundation of the Holy Savior.

Three priests, a Nicaraguan and two Mexicans

The dictatorship has employed the repressive method of expelling both foreign and national citizens. According to Molina, Father Figueroa is Nicaraguan and was born in Matagalpa; meanwhile, priests Buenfil and Pérez are Mexicans.

Buenfil serves as the rector and superior general of the San Juan Neumann Convent in Chinandega, 84 miles west of Managua, and alongside Father Figueroa who in charge of the El Calvario Parish in El Viejo, Chinandega, 90 miles west of Managua.

And Father Pérez was currently in charge of the Immaculate Conception of Mary Parish in the city of León, 58 miles west of Managua.

The researcher Molina, recently awarded the International Religious Freedom Award by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom, denounced that «several religious individuals belonging to the congregation are missing, and I don’t know if they are in prison or have already left the country».

Simultaneously, Molina pointed out that «little by little, the dictatorship is eradicating religious congregations from the country that have only come to do good. The religious individuals were under surveillance by the police and paramilitaries, yet they continued to carry out their evangelizing mission. The dictatorship continues to attack religious freedom.»

Confiscation of assets

As it has become the norm, on the day of the cancellation of the legal status, the Ministry of the Interior delegated the Attorney General’s Office to oversee the transfer to the Stete of all assets, which, according to critics, amounts to confiscation.

In fact, Molina warned that with the revocation of legal status, two houses belonging to the order of the houses that belong to the priests are at risk of confiscation, both in Chinandega.

The Missionary Consecrated Foundation has been present since 2018

According to the website of the Missionary Consecrated Foundation, it has a permanent presence in the Diocese of Iztapalapa, Mexico City; in the Diocese of Cancún-Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico; and until Tuesday in Nicaragua in the Dioceses of Estelí and León-Chinandega. It also operates in countries such as the United States, Guatemala, and Argentina.

The missionary congregation was formalized in Nicaragua in 2018, and as highlighted on the website, «the congregation was born in the 1970s from a strong evangelizing impulse of married couples and young people, encouraged by Father Pablo Straub, a Redemptorist missionary, from Puerto Rico.»

In 1990, the male community «formed around Father Pablo: The Consecrated of the Holy Savior, who would be contemplative-missionary priests with the same spirituality as the female branch.»

English Daniel Ortega Iglesia Católica libre Nicaragua archivo

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