埃斯特利教区的宗座署理80岁的瓦莱神父在尼加拉瓜被拘禁，3位执事的晋铎仪式也被取消。
据CNA网报道，80岁的瓦莱（Frutos Valle）神父在尼加拉瓜被拘禁。瓦莱神父在阿尔瓦雷斯（Rolando José Álvarez Lagos）主教被捕并离开尼加拉瓜后，被梵蒂冈任命为埃斯特利教区宗座署理，允许他履行除主教保留的职责之外的所有牧区管理的普通职能。
自2021年以来，埃斯特利教区一直没有主教。马塔加尔帕主教阿尔瓦雷斯 (Rolando Álvarez) 于同年7月被任命为宗座署理，但2022年8月，这位主教先是被警方关押在其住所，然后在半夜被绑架并转移到马那瓜并被软禁。2023年2月，他被判处26年监禁。阿尔瓦雷斯最终于今年1月被驱逐回罗马，目前他流亡在外。
7月27日,据律师兼研究员莫利纳（Martha Patricia Molina）分享此案时透露，尼加拉瓜埃斯特利教区署理瓦莱神父被尼加拉瓜国家警察局“绑架、审问”并被监视在天主教会组建中心。
莫利纳是《尼加拉瓜：遭受迫害的教会？》一书的作者，该报告长达300多页，其最新更新列举了自2018年4月以来针对天主教会的至少667起袭击事件。
莫利纳说：“我毫不怀疑，在从索莫托镇转移到马那瓜首都的过程中，瓦莱神父受到了审讯，而且肯定遭受了心理折磨，这是桑地诺卫兵的习惯做法。然后他们把神父带到了一个收容所，他一直被关押在那里，受到警方的监视”。
7月29日，莫利纳谈到，瓦莱神父是一位80岁、服务超过50年的司铎，患有“多种疾病”并被“任意绑架”。
此外，原定于上周六在埃斯特利（Estelí）教区玫瑰圣母主教座堂举行的查瓦里亚（Wendell Fuentes Chavarría）执事的晋铎仪式不明原因地被取消。据当地新闻所述，执事本人在致教区信众的信中传达了此事。该报还提到，另外两位执事拉约（Kellyn José Martínez Rayo）和埃尔南德斯（Ervin Joel Hernández）也遭遇了与查瓦里亚同样的事。
莫利纳还表示，目前至少有3名神父面临被监禁或驱逐出境的威胁，几名平信徒正在接受当局的调查。
自2018年以来，尼加拉瓜总统奥尔特加和他的妻子以及副总统的独裁统治加剧了对天主教会的迫害。
Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón, administrator “ad omnia” of the Diocese of Estelí in Nicaragua, has been “abducted, interrogated,” and placed under surveillance in a Catholic Church formation house by the Nicaraguan National Police, according to lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, who shared the case on X on July 27.
Molina is the author of “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?”, a report of over 300 pages that in its last update cited at least 667 attacks against the Catholic Church since April 2018.
“I don’t doubt that during the transfer from [the town of] Somoto to [the capital] Managua he was interrogated and surely psychologically tortured, as is the custom of the Sandinista guard. Then they took him to a formation house where he remains imprisoned under police surveillance,” Molina said.
In a July 29 statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Molina said that Valle, an 80-year-old priest with more than 50 years of service, suffers from “multiple illnesses” and was “arbitrarily abducted.”
In 2023, the Holy See appointed Valle as executor “ad omnia” of the Diocese of Estelí, allowing him to carry out all ordinary functions of pastoral governance except those reserved to a bishop.
The Diocese of Estelí has been without a bishop since 2021. Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, was appointed apostolic administrator in July of that year, but in August 2022 the prelate was first confined to his residence by police, then abducted and transferred in the middle of the night to Managua and kept under house arrest. In February 2023, he was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Álvarez was finally deported to Rome in January of this year, where he now lives in exile.
Molina told ACI Prensa that she does not know the specific reasons why the government of President Daniel Ortega took these actions against Valle but noted that “we should not rule out that it was because of the ordination of priests that did not take place.”
On Saturday, July 27, three deacons were to be ordained priests in the Diocese of Estelí by the bishop of Jinotega and president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference, Carlos Herrera. However, on Friday, July 26, Deacon Wendel Fuentes Chavarria shared a note that the ordination had been canceled. Along with him, Kelin José Martínez Rayo and Ervin Joel Hernández Umanzor were also to be ordained priests.
The order to cancel the ordination was allegedly given by the dictatorship. According to the news outlet Mozaico, a source within the Church stated that the local police came and told Valle that “the ordination was not authorized.”
Molina also indicated that “at least three priests are under threat of being imprisoned or deported and several laypeople are under investigation” by the authorities.
Since 2018, the dictatorship of Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, has intensified its persecution of the Catholic Church.
This story was first publishedby ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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