The bishops of Guatemala also expressed “their solidarity with Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a courageous shepherd devoted to his people and his sheep, who has faced persecution for a long time and now imprisonment by the prevailing regime in Nicaragua.”
The bishops offered their “prayer to almighty God for that sister country and for all those who suffer in it, in a special way for Bishop Rolando Álvarez, that the Lord may assist him in his ordeal and give him strength in this time when he is being treated so unjustly.”
The dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua sentenced Álvarez, the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, to 26 years and four months in prison on Feb. 10, accusing him of being a “traitor to the homeland.”
The sentencing of the prelate, who was also stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship by the dictatorship, came just one day after the regime deported 222 political prisoners to the United States, including several priests and seminarians.
The Managua Court of Appeals had also ordered Álvarez to be deported, but according to Ortega, the bishop refused to board the plane that would have carried him to freedom unless he could first consult with the priests already on the plane and the Nicaraguan bishops.
Ortega called this request “absurd” and the court found the prelate in contempt for refusing deportation, although the agreement reached with the U.S. State Department stipulated that no one could be forced to leave the country.