Rosario Murillo, wife of communist dictator Daniel Ortega and “co-president” of Nicaragua, praised the “heroism of Jesus Christ” on Tuesday in an address ignoring the fact that her regime has banned Holy Week processions in the country.
The Ortega regime has waged a brutal persecution against Christianity and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church as “punishment” for the Church’s support of nationwide anti-communist protests in 2018. Ortega dramatically escalated his persecution campaign in 2022 and declared a “war” against the Vatican.
Catholics worldwide mark Holy Week to commemorate the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Holy Week, a moveable observance, will run this year from April 13 (Palm Sunday) to April 20 (Easter Sunday). For the third year in a row, the Ortega regime banned all public Holy Week processions in the country. Nicaraguan outlets reported that Murillo has issued daily Holy Week-related “religious” messages since Palm Sunday, co-opting Christian language while heavily restricting the free exercise of Christian faith in the country.
On Tuesday, the Nicaraguan “co-president” issued one such message on the state media channel El 19 and said that Nicaragua is celebrating the “Passion, the surrender of Jesus Christ.” Murillo said that her husband, a self-professed “Catholic,” described Christ as “the greatest hero of humanity.”
“Last night we [she and Ortega] were talking about the heroism of Jesus, who surrendered with meekness, accepting his surrender, his sacrifice, to serve humanity, the legacy, the legacy that is unalterable, of love and hope,” Murillo said.
“Christ Jesus, we are living these days remembering his Passion and that heroism, the heroism of an extraordinary being, the son of God, who accepted his mission, his sacrifice, out of Love and from the supreme love for humanity and spirituality, supreme love, spirit, humanity, which must be fraternal, victorious because we know how to transcend materiality and be spirit,” she continued.
Murillo has been at the frontlines of her husband’s relentless persecution of Christianity, espousing rants and verbal accusations against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church such as claiming in 2023 that its priests are the “representatives of the devil.”
Most notably, in 2022, she accused Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and an outspoken critic of the Ortega regime, of committing “sins against spirituality.” Shortly after her accusations, the Ortega regime launched a two-week-long raid on Matagalpa parish that culminated with the arrest of bishop Álvarez and several other members of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church.
Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years on “treason” charges and stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality, rendering him a stateless person. The Ortega regime banished Álvarez to the Vatican in January 2024.
ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language division of the Catholic News Agency, reported on Monday that the Ortega regime will deploy 14,000 policemen to prevent public Holy Week processions from taking place in Nicaragua. The mandate forces churches — whose priests are subject to weekly police interrogations — to hold significantly diminished indoor ceremonies.
The outlet, citing information provided by exiled Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, reported that the Nicaraguan police has a plan dubbed, “Summer Plan 2025” that involves “police harassment and intimidation of priests” to ensure that they do not carry out public processions and abstain from mentioning content critical of the regime in their weekly homilies.
On Friday, Molina denounced on social media that the Ortega regime prevented preschool-aged children from performing a Catholic Stations of the Cross procession at a school in the western city of León, forcing them to carry out the activity indoors.
“Jesus is going to overthrow those dictators who have stolen Nicaragua as if it were their estate. God looks at the suffering of his people and God does not abandon Nicaragua, even though the co-dictators [Ortega and Murillo] think they will continue to triumph,” exiled Nicaraguan priest Nils Hernández said on Sunday at a church in Iowa.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Read the full article here
