MATAGALPA, Nicaragua (LifeSiteNews) – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s anti-Catholic regime is continuing its attack on the Catholic Church, this time expelling the nuns of the Religious Sisters of the Cross.
“Today, victims of the harassment and threats of the dictatorship, the Religious Sisters of the Cross (founded in Mexico) who had been in Matagalpa for years doing spiritual work left the country,” reported Nicaragua Informa on Facebook on Sunday.
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According to Catholic News Agency, a source close to the congregation, who asked for anonymity, said that “their departure was due to the pressure exerted by government workers to know where each contribution the sisters received came from, even the smallest small donations,” in addition to their inability to have their “residence permit” renewed for the foreign sisters.
The expulsion of the Religious Sisters of the Cross is just one example of the anti-Catholic persecution going on under Ortega’s socialist, left-wing government.
Last month, Bishop Ronaldo Alvarez was arrested by the government of Nicaragua after his Catholic radio stations were shut down under dubious circumstances.
The Ortega regime’s anti-Catholic actions have been met with harsh criticism by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as intergovernmental groups like the European Union and the United Nations.
Despite condemnation from secular institutions, many Catholics feel as though Pope Francis’ relative silence and calls for “dialogue” amid overt persecution have been “scandalous” and insufficient.
“Pope Francis’ silence on what’s going on in Nicaragua is scandalous,” Agustin Antonetti, director of a non-governmental organization called Latin America Watch, said last month.
READ: Will the Vatican defend the Church in Nicaragua, or broker a deal like in Communist China?
“Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship is taking the churches by force, they have shut down all their channels and radios, even one priest is in jail, and the rest are afraid of being kidnapped.”