The Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, one of the leading investigators into religious persecution under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has denounced a new intensification of state control over the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, marked by permanent police surveillance, liturgical restrictions, and growing limitations on freedom of worship.
According to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Molina states that regime agents attend churches daily to photograph and record priests and faithful during masses and internal clergy meetings.
“The agents go to the churches every day to photograph and register the faithful during the mass and internal clergy meetings,” affirmed the investigator, currently exiled.
More than 1,000 documented episodes of persecution
Molina is the author of the report Nicaragua, una Iglesia perseguida, considered one of the main international documents on religious repression in the Central American country.
The seventh edition of the report, published in 2025 and also delivered to Pope Leo XIV during the Jubilee of Migrants, documents 1,010 episodes of persecution between April 2018 and July 2025.
The dossier collects aggressions against priests and bishops, restrictions on religious life, expulsions, police surveillance, and attacks on temples and Catholic celebrations.
According to the data collected by Molina, since 2019, 28,904 restrictions related to processions, acts of popular devotion, and religious celebrations have also been recorded.
Thousands of processions blocked during Holy Week
The investigator recently denounced that during the last Holy Week, the Sandinista regime blocked 6,135 processions throughout the country.
In many cases, religious celebrations can only take place inside the churches and under the supervision of the authorities, while public manifestations of faith remain prohibited or heavily limited.
“The organization of patronal feasts, processions, and liturgical celebrations has passed under the control of public institutions,” affirmed Molina.
Supervised homilies and monitored priests
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana also assures that numerous priests are required to submit their pastoral programs weekly to the authorities and request specific permits for any activity carried out outside the parish.
In some dioceses, priests must even deliver the full text or a summary of the homily they will deliver during the mass in advance.
The control also extends to physical and technological surveillance. Priests and bishops are followed by agents in civilian clothes, drones, and frequent checks of mobile phones.
A Nicaraguan priest cited anonymously by ACI Prensa explained that the police attend every Sunday to photograph him and verify his movements.
“If during a homily he addresses a social issue, he risks two things: prison or exile,” affirmed the priest.
Rosario Murillo and the hardening of religious control
Molina maintains that the surveillance system is supported by the police, political structures linked to Sandinismo, and tens of thousands of paramilitaries incorporated into the social control apparatus during 2025.
The investigator describes the current situation as a “silent siege”: fewer spectacular detentions than in previous years, but constant pressure aimed at intimidating both the clergy and the faithful.
Among the new restrictions denounced is even the criminalization of certain religious acts, such as praying publicly or transporting rosaries and devotional objects across the country’s borders.
According to Molina, the regime considers any public manifestation of religiosity that is not aligned with the political control exercised by “Orteguismo” as suspicious