(LifeSiteNews) — Nicaragua’s communist government banned the ordination of priests and deacons in four dioceses where bishops have been punished with exile.
The dictatorial President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president Rosario Murillo have barred even neighboring bishops from ordaining priests in the Dioceses of Jinotega, Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí, whose bishops have all been expelled, ACI Prensa recently reported.
Even bishops’ criticism of those aligned with the Ortega regime has led to the clerics’ expulsion from the country. Among the most prominent of the country’s bishops, Carlos Herrera of Jinotega, president of the bishops’ conference, was exiled to Guatemala in November 2024 after chiding a pro-Ortega mayor for blasting music outside of his cathedral during Mass, calling it a “sacrilege.”
Earlier that year, Herrera had ordained a priest and seven deacons in the neighboring Diocese of Matagalpa, whose bishop, Rolando Álvarez, was exiled by the Ortega regime to Rome in January 2024 after being jailed for 18 months. Álvarez is also apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí. Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna was also exiled at the time.
Three Nicaraguan priests in exile spoke with ACI Prensa on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the regime.
“Especially in dioceses without a bishop, surveillance is even more extreme to prevent a bishop from another diocese from coming” for a liturgical event, one priest said.
This priest said that seven priest candidates in Siuna who completed their studies in 2025, in addition to a group who finished in 2024, are still waiting to be ordained. Meanwhile, the situation “does not seem to have affected new admissions” to the seminary.
Another priest said the regime seeks to “supplant the bishops” and that some clergy “don’t put up a fight to avoid making their lives more difficult, with the idea of saving their dioceses, but in the end, they are surrendering their mandate to whatever the government says.”
He believes that Matagalpa has probably had the most clergy expelled; at least 32 of its priests are living in exile.
The third priest explained why other dioceses are continuing ordinations.
“León, Granada, Juigalpa, and Bluefields are dioceses that have their diocesan bishop there and maintain a very prudent approach, even though some media outlets have labeled one of (the bishops) as an ally of the regime,” he told ACI Prensa. “That’s not true; they are simply more practical for the good of their pastors and their flock.”
In November 2025, eight deacons were ordained priests in Managua.
Despite the Ortega regime’s persecution, “the Lord continues to raise up courageous young men who listen to him and enter into the process of vocational discernment,” the priests agreed.
“Even though the government wants to prevent priestly ordinations, there have been ways in which the Church, the bishops, have managed and sought to make them happen without the government noticing. This demonstrates the Church’s resourcefulness in the face of adversity, how it reinvents itself, how it continues to evangelize,” the third priest contacted by ACI Prensa said.
Two Nicaraguans were ordained priests in the Diocese of Limón, Costa Rica, in a “secretly held ceremony” to avoid retaliation from Ortega’s regime, Mosaico CSI reported in February.
“Obstacles are not a problem for the Church but rather a cross that the Church bravely embraces, as Our Lord taught us, and that propels it on this path to resurrection,” the third priest said.
The ordination ban intensifies the crackdown on the Catholic Church in the country. Nicaragua’s government has unjustly arrested priests, expelled religious congregations, shut down Catholic radio stations, and, according to Molina, has banned the ordination of deacons and ordered the shutdown of evangelization-focused social media pages.
The participation of some priests in protests against the Ortega regime in 2018 is said to have prompted the dictator to make the Catholic Church his regime’s number one enemy. Since then, the regime has become increasingly paranoid about any potential opposition.
“They feel threatened by many ghosts. One of them is linked to people gathering. The idea of people visiting one another and sharing a message terrifies Ortega and Murillo,” Nicaraguan political analyst Enrique Sáenz told Crux.
“The totalitarian nature of the regime – this paranoid element and its obsession with clinging to power are part of it – leads to the absurd attempt to control the minds of the population,” he said.
