“With this expulsion, the number of priests and nuns who have been exiled, expelled, or denied entry has reached 309. More than 95% are Nicaraguan,” exiled researcher Martha Patricia Molina told ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.
Molina is the author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” which, in its latest installment in August 2025, states that the dictatorship has carried out 1,070 attacks against the Catholic Church and has banned 16,500 processions since 2018 — figures that continue to rise daily.
The Nicaraguan researcher further states that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, “speaks of love and reconciliation in their rhetoric, but their actions are not consistent with their words. They continue to attack the Catholic Church.”
Concepción Reyes was expelled last week after being detained and interrogated by Nicaraguan immigration officials at Managua International Airport. The priest was returning to the country after spending two years in Spain, according to the Nicaraguan newspaper Despacho 505.
A priest from the Diocese of León whom the newspaper did not identify said that Reyes, who was a seminary formator, “was detained, interrogated about his trip to Spain and why he had returned to the country, and after a lengthy interrogation, was denied entry and sent back to Spain.”
There was no mediation from the bishop of León, Sócrates René Sándigo Jirón, the only Nicaraguan bishop who voted in the 2021 presidential elections — the rest abstained — in which Ortega was reelected, a process that international observers described as a farce.
ACI Prensa contacted the Diocese of León to inquire about Reyes’ case. The diocese did not respond by the time of publication.
Ordination of new deacons or priests not allowed
Molina also warned that “the most serious aspect of this matter is the replacement of those priests who are no longer in the country, because the dictatorship is also not allowing new ordinations of deacons and priests in Jinotega, Matagalpa, Estelí, and Siuna.”
The four dioceses mentioned by Molina do not have their bishops present in Nicaragua. Bishop Carlos Herrera of Jinotega and president of the bishops’ conference was expelled from the country in November 2024 after criticizing a mayor aligned with the dictatorship for interfering with Mass by blasting loud music outside the church.
Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí, a critic of the dictatorship, was deported to Rome in January 2024 after having spent more than 18 months in detention. At the same time, Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna was also deported.
These three bishops, along with Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Báez of Managua, who had to leave Nicaragua in 2019, met with Pope Leo XIV in 2025.
Báez: Totalitarian regimes have ‘many ways’ to ‘take life and kill’
“Complicit silence also kills. In social life, to remain silent and not denounce injustice is to kill the dignity of individuals and the hope of nations ... In the totalitarian regimes of our countries, there are many ways in which they take life and kill,” Báez said in his homily for Sunday Mass on Feb. 15 at St. Agatha Church in Miami.
The prelate emphasized that “depriving people of their freedom, denigrating them with falsehoods, and treating them with cruelty are homicidal actions. Those who imprison innocent people simply for thinking differently are criminals.”
“So are those who force people into exile or strip them of their citizenship, taking away their lives as citizens. It is a form of homicide and a crime against humanity that does not have a statute of limitations. In dictatorships like the one in my country, don’t think we will forget these crimes,” he emphasized.
“I am a victim of death in the civil realm; they stripped me of my citizenship. It’s as if I don’t exist. And this crime, like the one committed against other Nicaraguans who have suffered the same fate, will be punished sooner or later,” the bishop stated.
“These are all real crimes,” he said, “and these abominable acts are not merely the whims of deranged and wicked people. They are not simply legal irregularities or violations of international norms. They are real crimes, and those who have committed them must face justice sooner or later.”