The “voluntary dissolution” classification, she explained, “is just a facade used by the Sandinista dictatorship. In this specific case we have before us an obligatory dissolution, by force.”
Molina is one of the most recognized investigators into the persecution suffered by the Church in Nicaragua. On May 15, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited the numbers on violence against Catholics under the Nicaraguan dictatorship compiled in her reports.
For Molina, the closure of the university “is yet another outrage, not only in the academic field, but also in the religious sphere. It is one more hostile action towards the Catholic Church.”
Félix Maradiaga, a former political prisoner and former presidential candidate in Nicaragua, told EWTN News that “there is no justification from a legal point of view, neither in the laws of Nicaragua nor in the Political Constitution” for the closure of the Catholic university.
“We know from internal sources that we have within Nicaragua that this has not been a voluntary closure,” he added, noting similar cases in other Catholic institutions in the country.
For Maradiaga it’s important “that the world know what is happening,” stressing that “the persecution of the Church within Nicaragua is a persecution and an attack on the universal Church, and that must be made known globally.”