Ortega’s Nicaragua: Silencing the Church Under the Guise of Secular Oppression
EWTN News reports on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List ranking Nicaragua 32nd among countries persecuting Christians, detailing Daniel Ortega’s regime confiscating 43 Church properties, banning 18,808 processions, and exiling four Catholic bishops. The article frames this persecution through secular human rights language while omitting the fundamental theological crisis: the systematic eradication of Christ’s Social Kingship.
Reduction of Persecution to Secular Human Rights Narrative
The analysis reduces the Church’s suffering to “human rights violations” and “destabilizing agents,” ignoring the regnum Christi (kingship of Christ) that demands nations submit to His authority. Pius XI’s Quas Primas (1925) declares:
“Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.”
By contrast, the article’s focus on Ortega’s “crackdown on dissenting voices” equates the Church with mere political dissenters rather than Christus Vincit’s militia (Christ’s conquering army).
Omission of the Church’s Supernatural Mission
Nowhere does the text mention the munera docendi, sanctificandi et regendi (teaching, sanctifying, and governing offices) violated by Ortega’s suppression of sacraments and exile of clergy. The 1,030 attacks against Catholics constitute not just political repression but direct assault on the Corpus Christi Mysticum (Mystical Body of Christ). St. Pius X’s Vehementer Nos (1906) condemns such acts:
“The Church is essentially an unequal society… comprising two categories of persons: the pastors and the flock… The duty of the multitude is to suffer itself to be governed and to carry out the orders of the rulers.”
Naturalistic Framework Conceals Satanic War Against the Sacraments
The report notes priests face surveillance and “homilies must be entirely theological” (i.e., stripped of social doctrine), reducing the Faith to private sentiment. This enacts Modernism’s error condemned in Pius X’s Lamentabili (1907):
“Revelation could not be other than the consciousness acquired by man of his relation to God” (Proposition 20).
By silencing prophetic witness, Ortega fulfills the Masonic goal denounced in Pius IX’s Syllabus (1864): “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55).
False Neutrality Towards Schismatic ‘Churches’
Open Doors groups “Pentecostals and Baptists” with Catholics as persecuted believers, ignoring their separation from the Una Vera Ecclesia (One True Church). Leo XIII’s Satis Cognitum (1896) declares:
“The Church is one because… Jesus Christ founded one Church only… Whoever leaves it departs from the will and command of Christ.”
Equating heretical sects with the Bride of Christ aids the regime’s efforts to reduce Christianity to apolitical piety.
Theological Cowardice in Face of Martyrdom
The article ignores how exiled bishops like Rolando Álvarez embody the ecclesia militans (Church militant). Instead, it treats their expulsion as bureaucratic injustice, neglecting Christ’s promise: “They will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). Nowhere does EWTN invoke Pius XI’s teaching that persecution confirms the Church’s divine origin:
“The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians” (Apud Eusebium, Hist. Eccl., V, 1).
Conclusion: Where Christ Does Not Reign, the Devil Rules
Ortega’s war on the Church exposes the regnum diaboli (kingdom of the devil) inherent in all regimes rejecting Christ’s sovereignty. As Pius XI warned: “When God and Jesus Christ are excluded from laws and states… the entire human society is shaken” (Quas Primas). Until Catholics demand Nicaragua’s submission to the Social Reign of Christ the King—not mere “religious freedom”—such persecution will intensify. Ubi Christus non regnat, ibi regnum diaboli (Where Christ does not reign, there the kingdom of the devil reigns).
Source:
Open Doors: Nicaraguan Christians ‘increasingly silenced’ by dictatorship (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 22.01.2026