Catholic News Agency reports on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List, which ranks Nicaragua 32nd for Christian persecution under Daniel Ortega’s regime. The article details confiscation of 43 Church properties, 1,030 attacks against Catholics, exile of four bishops, and surveillance of clergy. Open Doors – an ecumenical organization – frames the conflict through secular human rights language, emphasizing “silencing of dissenting voices” and interdenominational persecution while noting Catholics as “primary targets.” The report avoids theological analysis, reducing the conflict to political repression rather than spiritual warfare against the Mystical Body of Christ. **This naturalistic framing constitutes complicity with the persecutors’ worldview.**
Secularized Narrative Obscures Supernatural Battle
The report’s repeated references to “human rights violations” and “dissenting voices” (Open Doors 2026 Report) betray a modernist inversion of priorities. Quas primas explicitly teaches that “the rebellion of individuals and states against our Savior” constitutes the root cause of societal collapse (Pius XI, 1925). By adopting Ortega’s secular framing, the analysis ignores the essential truth: Nicaragua’s regime wages war not merely against political opposition but against Christ the King’s sovereign rights over nations. The 39 confiscated churches stand as martyred witnesses to Ortega’s non serviam – a direct rejection of the Social Reign of Christ mandated by Immortale Dei (Leo XIII, 1885).
Ecumenical Complicity in Doctrinal Betrayal
Open Doors’ equal concern for “Pentecostals and Baptists” alongside Catholics reveals poisonous indifferentism condemned by Mortalium animos: “The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ” (Pius XI, 1928). The report’s prayer – addressing “Heavenly Father” rather than Our Lord Jesus Christ – embodies theologically empty sentimentality. True Catholic response demands uncompromising reaffirmation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, not interdenominational hand-wringing. Martha Patricia Molina’s documented evidence of 18,808 banned processions proves the regime specifically targets Catholic expressions of piety – a distinction blurred by Open Doors’ ecumenical agenda.
Omission of Marxism’s Anti-Catholic Essence
The article fails to identify Ortega’s Sandinista ideology as inherently anti-Christian, despite Pius XI’s definitive teaching that communism is “intrinsically wrong” (Divini Redemptoris, 1937). Nicaragua’s constitutional reforms enabling Church persecution follow the Marxist playbook described in the Syllabus of Errors: “The State has the right to define what are the rights of the Church” (Condemned Proposition 19). By reducing persecution to “political loyalty” demands, the report ignores communism’s ontological hatred for the One True Church. The surveillance of priests’ homilies specifically targets Catholic Social Doctrine – the very teaching that offers Nicaragua’s only path to justice.
Modernist Silence on Sacramental Realities
Nowhere does the article mention the spiritual catastrophe befalling Nicaraguan Catholics deprived of valid sacraments due to exiled priests. The regime’s expulsion of 304 consecrated religious creates sacramental deserts – a diabolical assault on souls needing grace. Traditional Catholic analysis would emphasize the eternal consequences: souls dying without Last Rites, children deprived of catechesis, desecrated altars. Instead, Open Doors laments “loss of citizenship” – prioritizing earthly consequences over eternal salvation. This mirrors the naturalism condemned in Lamentabili sane: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Condemned Proposition 20).
Conclusion: Confronting Apostasy With Catholic Arms
True Catholic resistance requires rejecting the report’s secular framework. Nicaragua’s suffering Church needs rosaries, not UN petitions; public consecrations to Christ the King, not ecumenical prayer services; unyielding bishops, not compromised dialogues. As the exiled Bishop Rolando Álvarez demonstrated before his banishment, only uncompromising fidelity to Tradition can withstand Marxist persecution. The “growing suffocation” lamented by Open Doors will intensify until Nicaragua’s hierarchy demands – like Clement XIII confronting the Bourbons – “Let the Church be as God made her!”
Source:
Open Doors: Nicaraguan Christians ‘increasingly silenced’ by dictatorship (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 22.01.2026