The meetings on 20-21 August were described as intimidatory, with the participants threatened with expulsion of they did not attend.
It came amid intensified bureaucratic and legal pressures on Churches and NGOs throughout the month.
On 19 August the government cancelled the legal authorisation to operate for 1,500 NGOs, including Church-run charities.
The next day saw the removal of churches’ charitable status and tax exemption, requiring them to pay 10-30 per cent tax on donations, collections and Mass offerings.
The authorities also revoked the legal status of 169 non-profit organisations on 29 August, including a number of branches of Caritas and 80 Protestant Church groups.
Among the latter was the Moravian Church in Nicaragua, which largely serves indigenous communities such as the Miskito, Sumu and Rama, and communities of African heritage on the Caribbean coast.
This followed the government’s bizarre decision to remove the authorisation of 108 associations devoted to horse racing and riding, many of which regularly cooperated with local authorities and the police for parades and displays.
Speaking on 18 August, the first anniversary of the government’s seizure of the Jesuit-run Central American University in Managua, the spokesperson of the Central American Jesuits said that the Jesuit universities in El Salvador and Guatemala had been very helpful in accommodating former students of the Managua university, finding places for around 400.
Fr José María Tojeira SJ was less optimistic about wider conditions in Nicaragua. “Really, what I hope I have is in a change of regime,” he said, warning of the possible fate of the presidential couple, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“I have the feeling that they will come to a bad end,” he said. “Let’s hope it ends well, but they seem so hard and so aggressive that I find it hard to think that things will end well for them. I remember how it was for Ceaucescu and his wife at the end. No-one defended them, not even their own army or their own police.”