No country for bishops

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 18th of January, 2024. This is WORLD Radio. Thanks for listening! Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It: religious liberty in Latin America.

This week, authorities in the Central American nation of Nicaragua announced they’d released 19 members of the Catholic clergy from prison.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez spent more than 500 days in prison for criticizing the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The government arrested other members of the Catholic church shortly before Christmas. It accused the clergy of terrorism and attempting a coup.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Ortega released clergy members from jail on Monday and exiled them to Rome where they are now guests of the Vatican.

Joining us now to sort this out is Kristina Hjelkrem. She’s legal counsel for Latin America with the Alliance Defending Freedom International talking to us from Ecuador.

REICHARD: Kristina, good morning

KRISTINA HJELKREM: Good morning. Thank you very much for having me.

REICHARD: What can you tell us about the conflict between the church and the government of Nicaragua dating back to 2018?

HJELKREM: Civil society in Nicaragua became restless when the Nicaraguan parliament issued a law that changed social security in a way that made a lot of people uncomfortable. That prompted a crisis, a very strong crisis that ended up in having 300 citizens deceased from the governmental repression of the protest.

Then the Catholic Church was asked to be a witness of the national dialogue that was looking for peace. Then is when Bishop Alvarez comes into the scene. He was part of the ecclesiastical group that witnessed these negotiations. Once the negotiations failed, the state began to persecute the church and also the members of the Ecclesiastical group, which Bishop Alvarez, as I said before, was a part of.

REICHARD: From what I’ve read, Álvarez wasn’t arrested right away. The government tried to intimidate him at first and then put him under house arrest. How did he respond to those acts?

HJELKREM: Through it all, Bishop Alvarez remained firm in Christ and faithful. So, back in 2022, August 4th, Alvarez was supposed to leave his residence to go to the closest cathedral to give a Mass, and the police detained him in his residence for 15 days along with other seminarians and priests. After that, they went into the house on August 19, and arrested him without a warrant. And he was then subjected to house arrest without, again, a decision from a judge. His trial came months later when he was finally convicted in a sham trial, charged with undermining national integrity and propagation of false news. All of this only on the basis of sermons that he had delivered from the pulpit, um, as a result of what he considered a religious duty to preach about governmental human rights violations.

REICHARD: Álvarez was sentenced to over 26 years in prison, so what led to his release after less than a year?

HJELKREM: Yes, the delicate negotiations between the Holy See and the State of Nicaragua prompted his release. The State of Nicaragua communicated last Sunday that their release took place in the context of the fulfillment of agreements of good faith and goodwill between both institutions that seek to promote understanding and improve communication between the Holy See and Nicaragua.

Similar negotiations took place in October of last year when the Nicaraguan State released other 12 priests referring the clerics to the Holy See.

REICHARD: What’s next for Bishop Álvarez?

HJELKREM: There are no more legal avenues for Bishop Alvarez in Nicaragua. Those were exhausted. And what ADF International has done for him other than advocating for him and trying to bring the international community’s attention to his case to prompt his release, we submitted a petition on his behalf to the Inter American Commission of Human Rights that could issue a binding decision on Nicaragua, condemning Nicaragua for the persecution of the church and the violation of the bishop’s rights, all of them, including religious freedom, freedom of speech, but also right to life, right to physical integrity, et cetera.

So, I think that’s what today is. Like, the most remaining important effort, because that’s going to be the first decision that will condemn Nicaragua and sort of, like, call out Nicaragua in a, from a legal perspective for the violations of human rights they have committed. Because one of the biggest issues here is that a lot of people that have been exiled from Nicaragua, they were all terrified of pursuing justice at the international level because they knew, even though their safety would be okay, their family was still in Nicaragua, could still suffer the consequences. So, the Bishop’s case is the first and only that will be presented on behalf of someone of the clergy, the first decision that will be binding on Nicaragua because of their religious freedom violations.

REICHARD: Well given all that you’ve just said, are you discouraged or encouraged as far as the bigger picture of religious liberty in Latin America?

HJELKREM: It’s always discouraging seeing how states do not abide to their human rights obligations in which the protection of religious freedom is guaranteed. The biggest problem from the perspective of religious freedom is that populism and totalitarian ideologies such as Sandinismo in Nicaragua are always tempted to usurp the moral authority of the church.

This leads to the persecution of the church when its teachings do not coincide with the political ideology of the ruling party. And that’s what happened with Bishop Alvarez. He was preaching the gospel and preaching about God-given freedoms and justice, which also led him to denounce the human rights violations perpetrated by the government. And that’s why the government decided to put him in jail.

The biggest trend that we are seeing for the violations of religious freedoms in Latin America right now is the censorship of those who express their faith. This is always discouraging, but we always have, we’re always looking at this reality with hope and with faith that the work that we’re doing and the work of Catholics and Christians who are very strong in that truth and good is going to prevail.

REICHARD: Kristina Hjelkrem is an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom International in Latin America. Kristina, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it.

HJELKREM: Thank you very much for having me.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.