Showing posts with label Bishop Alvarez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bishop Alvarez. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Police State Nicaragua


On Saturday, Nicaraguan National Police surrounded Managua Cathedral to obstruct a prayer "for the Church and for Nicaragua."

For the First Time in 30 Years, a Procession Has Been Halted -- Priest Arrested

(Managua) The anti-Church measures in Nicaragua are becoming open repression. Nevertheless, Pope Francis is silent on the persecution, as it showed itself this weekend.


Events in the Central American country are unfolding. In Managua, the police had surrounded the cathedral. In various parts of the country, the processions for the feast of the Assumption of Mary had been banned. The prelude was the ban on a procession planned for August 13. An unprecedented event in the history of the country since the end of the Sandinista revolutionary government in 1990. The Sandinista regime cited "a threat to internal security" as the reason.


With this justification, the ban on a large procession "for the Church and for Nicaragua" was first imposed. This procession had been planned for August 13 at the end of the Marian Congress. In the procession, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was to be carried through the streets of Managua.


The police extensively monitored the area around the congress and obstructed the faithful from reaching the congress grounds. Buses and cars were stopped, the people checked and partly prevented from continuing their journey. The Archdiocese of Managua, because of the ban on the procession, called on the faithful to come to the cathedral after the end of the Marian Congress to pray for the aforementioned petitions.


Sandinista hostility to the Church: "Demons in cassocks"


Head of state and government Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo accuse the church of planning a coup d'état in 2018 to put an end to Sandinista rule. In reality, the ecclesiastical hierarchy had sought mediation between the socialist regime and the people who had gathered in the streets for mass protests. Ortega brutally suppressed the protests. Hundreds of people were killed. Since then, the Church has been subjected to numerous harassments and has been openly persecuted for months. The reason for this is that Ortega and Murillo are convinced that the critics of the regime gather in the protection of the Church, which is why they see in every procession and every prayer an anti-regime rally.

Police contingent for intimidation and ready to access

On Twitter, a user wrote on the news that the police had surrounded the cathedral of Managua:


"If it is an attack to attend Mass, FAITH is the only thing this dictatorship is afraid of." 


Ortega's wife, who has served as vice president since 2017, attacks the Church almost daily, calling priests "imposters" and "manipulators." 


Ortega himself described the country's bishops as "demons with cassocks." In the past two months alone, the Ortega-Murillo couple has closed eleven radio stations and five television stations. Most of them were under Church sponsorship. Most recently, the regime closed Radio Darío in the city of León last Friday.


Bishop Álvarez of Matagalpa is held "hostage" by the police in his Curia, as his confrere Msgr. Baéz criticized. Álvarez criticized the government's measures on Twitter:


"They have shut down all our radio stations, but they will not silence the Word of God."

 

Since August 4th, the police have been besieging the diocesan curia of Matagalpa. Since then, the bishop has been held in it together with several priests, some seminarians and two laymen. As he continues his criticism via social networks, the regime has since initiated criminal proceedings against him for allegedly "organizing violent groups" and "inciting hatred."


In various parts of the country, Monday, on the feast of the Assumption, the police prohibited priests from carrying out traditional processions or other activities outside the churches.


Yesterday, the country's Episcopal Conference also criticised the arrest of priests without being accused of anything. [Reminds one of the treatment the FFI got from Bergoglio and Volpe.] For example, the diocese of Siuna in the north of the country announced the arrest of Don Oscar Benavidez of the Holy Spirit Church in Mulukukú. The priest had been arrested on Sunday afternoon "without giving reasons or motives". The diocese demanded information from the state about the whereabouts of the priest. However, the police refused to confirm the arrest themselves.


The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights CENDIH announced that the priest was "taken out of his vehicle and taken away in a patrol car in an unknown direction," and called for "an end to the persecution of the Church and its clergy."


Mulukukú was a center of anti-Sandinista resistance in the first Ortega dictatorship in the 80s.


"No freedom of religion, no freedom of expression"


Nicaraguan priest Edwin Román, who lives in exile in the U.S., told VOA News that in Nicaragua there is "no freedom of religion, no freedom of expression, no freedom of movement."


Bishop Silvio José Báez, who expressed his solidarity with Bishop Álvarez on Twitter, also lives in exile in the USA today. According to official language regulations, the regime critic had asked Pope Francis in 2019 to release him from his office as auxiliary bishop of Managua. In reality, Francis had presented his head to the regime by calling him – "for his safety" – to the Vatican. Initially, it was said that he would be given a new task there until his return to Nicaragua would be possible again. But that was not the case. Bishop Báez was not given a task in Rome out of consideration for the Ortega regime. Instead, the Carmelite was assigned a Jesuit community in Florida as his place of residence. [Imagine the stench of iniquity?]


For years, the Church has been in a field of tension that weighs heavily on it. While the Church in Nicaragua is being persecuted more and more brutally, Pope Francis is silent on this while dictator Ortega calls Francis his "friend." Neither on Sunday nor yesterday did Francis comment on the events in Nicaragua at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square.


The "friendship" could be captured in pictures last Saturday, when the entrances to the Marian Congress in Managua were monitored by the police and the cathedral was surrounded by national police. Nevertheless, several thousand Nicaraguans managed to reach the cathedral and pray there "for the Church and for Nicaragua".


The area around the cathedral, located in the center of the capital, was the scene of large mass protests against the Ortega regime in 2018. Since then, public rallies have been suppressed by the state. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua and Primate of Nicaragua, said on August 13th, apparently addressing the government: "Lord forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."


Characteristic of the repressive climate in Nicaragua, the mask requirement still enforced in the summer of 2022 due to an alleged corona threat that applies even to outdoor gatherings.


Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Twitter (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Bishop of Tenerife Forbids Powerful Freemasons Entrance into Church

Masonic Temple of Santa Cruz de Tenerife
(Madrid) The Bishop of Tenerife forbade Freemasons from entering a Catholic church. In November the annual congress of high level Freemasons of the 33rd degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite in the Canary Islands will take place.

Bishop Bernardo Álvarez informed the Masonic Lodges of the Canary Islands, that it will not tolerate the presence of Masonic symbols in the church of Santa Cruz de La Palma. The Masons wanted to commemorate deceased lodge brothers.

The Bishop of Tenerife made his decision public, with which he forbid the presence of the Loge Abora No. 87 in a church of Santa Cruz de La Palma. The notification was issued to the master of the Masonic Lodges of the Canary Islands, which is celebrating the "Masonic Week" in these days.

The First Masonic march to Christ the Savior Church in Decades

According to the daily ABC, a meeting between Bishop Álvarez and the Socialist Jeronimo Saavedra (PSOE) took place. Saavedra was, from 1993-1996, Minister of the Socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez, from 1999-2003, Spanish Senator, from 2007-2011 Mayor of Las Palmas and has since been a Member of Parliament. Saavedra is also a leading Freemason in the Canary Islands. At the meeting, the bishop informed his former minister "No" for an official appearance of the lodges in a church.

Bishop Alvarez and former Minister Saavedra
Bishop Alvarez and former minister Saavedra

This week all of the big names in Spanish Freemasonry gathered on the island of La Palma, including Oscar de Alfonso Ortega, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain. This said, in the fall of 2015: "We are experiencing one of the best moments of Freemasonry".

The Masons are to hold a "Masonic march" around the Christ the Savior Church on Friday, 2 September. Such things have  not been done in decades. "It is the first event of this kind since the return of democracy," said Saavedra.

Revival of Loge Abora No. 87

Iglesia del Salvador

Iglesia del Salvador site of"Masonic march"


Thus, the lodge brothers celebrate the revival of the Loge Abora No. 87 after 80 years of inactivity "for political reasons".  Because of the national forces of the Popular Front in areas, Masonic lodges had to suspend their activities. On March 1, 1940 Generalissimo Franco issued the Ley para la represión de la Masoneria y el Comunismo, the Law on Suppression of Freemasonry and Communism.  Spanish Freemasonry continued its work from the Mexican exile, where many Spanish masons found protection and asylum when President Lázaro Cárdenas of the dictatorial ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), himself a freemason.

Currently, in the Canary Islands there are 20 active lodges. The Loge Abora no. 87 adopted in 1875, took up its work. They are now part of the Grand Lodge of Spain, after the Grand Orient of Spain had become extinct at the end of the Spanish Civil War.

Tenerife was, before the Civil War, one of the most important Masonic centers in Spain. In 1900, the lodge Añaza was established that belonged to the Grand Orient of Spain, a large Masonic Temple. General Franco seized the tempt in 1936 and appropriated it for the Spanish Falange.

Congress of the high degree Freemason


Florentino Guzman showing his project for the renovation
of the Masonic Temple
Florentino Guzman before the project for renovation of the Masonic Temple

The return to the lodge was not possible. The heavily Socialist city government (2011-2015) saw to it that the temple was declared a national monument and began renovations in 2015. According to the renovation plan, a third of the cost will be from the public sector and two-thirds are to be financed by the private sector. The driving force behind the renovation is the socialist Councilor Florentino Guzmán Plasencia.

This year's International Congress of High Degree Freemasons will be held in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in November. It is organized by the Supreme Council of the 33rd and highest grade of the Old Accepted Scottish Rite (A.A.S.R.) and takes place every year at a different location.

The lodge brothers hope to keep at least the final event in the renovated Masonic Temple.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Wikicommons / Diario de Avisos / ABC (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG