Pope appoints exiled Nicaraguan Bishop Álvarez as synod delegate

Álvarez was deported from Nicaragua to Rome earlier this year.

On September 16, the Vatican announced the list of delegates for the second session of the Synod on Synodality, to be held October 2-27 this year.

The list of 368 members includes many of the same delegates from the first session, held last year. However there are about two dozen new participants, mostly substitutions for members from last year unable to attend this time around.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez. Ramírez 22 nic via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

One name stands out among the new papal appointees: Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

Álvarez was exiled to Rome in January after being arrested by the Ortega regime and sentenced last year to 26 years in prison for conspiracy.

Álvarez became one of the biggest enemies of Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship following the 2018 protests that swept the country, opposing the lack of free elections and a serious economic crisis.

More than 300 people were killed and more than 1,000 political prisoners were taken amid government repression surrounding these protests.

After police and paramilitary attacked the campus of a Managua university in July 2018, protestors - mostly students - took refuge in a nearby church, which was besieged by the police and paramilitary for two days and left two dead. 

The remaining students could leave only when bishops, along with delegates from international aid organizations, escorted the demonstrators to the Cathedral of Managua.

That siege was only the beginning of tensions and persecution of the Catholic Church that now seem to be reaching their highest point since the turbulent 1980s.

Recent years have seen priests jailed and exiled, and Church assets seized. Several dioceses are led by bishops who are in exile.

Bishop Álvarez, known affectionately in Nicaragua as Monseñor Rolando, consistently denounced the regime's human rights violations and the persecution against the Church. 

Observers believe that speaking up eventually led to the bishop’s arrest in 2022, when he protested the closure of a television station and 10 Catholic radio stations, along with a government-ordered siege at Divina Misericordia Parish when the local priest refused to hand over the radio equipment from the the station that operated from his parish.

Álvarez was initially placed under house arrest. In February 2023, he was given the chance to join a group of priests and political prisoners being deported to the United States in February 2022. He opted not to join them, because the conditions of his potential release were never adequately explained to him and he was asked to sign a blank sheet of paper which could be used as a confession. 

The following day, Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison for conspiracy. He was sent to La Modelo prison, and his Nicaraguan nationality was revoked.

Amid reports of declining health, Álvarez was eventually deported from Nicaragua to Rome in January 2024, along with 18 other priests and seminarians. He has been living in exile in Rome ever since.

Meanwhile, Álvarez’s diocese of Matagalpa has been the most affected by the persecution against the Church in the country, losing over 70% of its clergy to exile.

Nicaraguan exiles told The Pillar that one of the main reasons why the Ortega regime continues pressing against the diocese is because Álvarez has continued to lead his diocese from exile, something Ortega considered inadmissible. 

They believe that the Ortega regime has tacitly offered the Church a deal: an end to persecution in exchange for episocial appointments friendly to the Ortega dictatorship. 

There are numerous dioceses due for a new bishop: Matagalpa and Estelí (where Álvarez serves as apostolic administrator), Siuna (whose bishop, Isidoro Mora, was also exiled in January), Jinotega, and Managua (whose bishops are past retirement age).

But Pope Francis’ appointment of Álvarez to the Synod on Synodality seems to be a clear signal of support for the bishop - and a resounding ‘no’ to Ortega’s proposed truce.