The National Catholic Register portal reports on a move by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to impose visa restrictions on over 100 Nicaraguan officials and their families following the death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera, an Indigenous leader who died in the custody of the Murillo-Ortega regime after over 970 days of incommunicado detention. While the secular framing presents this as a geopolitical maneuver, the underlying reality reveals the systematic persecution of the Catholic Church by a regime that has banned priestly ordinations, exiled bishops, closed Catholic institutions, and restricted the celebration of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—a persecution that the current structures occupying the Vatican have met with an inexplicable and damning silence.
The Secular Mask Over Spiritual Persecution
The article, sourced from EWTN News and published by the National Catholic Register on June 9, 2026, presents the Rubio administration’s visa restrictions as a response to the “horrific death” of Brooklyn Rivera, who died at 73 from a bacterial infection triggered by COVID-19 while held incommunicado. Secretary Rubio stated: “With this new set of restrictions, the U.S. government has now taken steps to impose visa restrictions on over 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their family members for their complicit role in Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship.”
This phrasing is revealing in its limitation. The regime is described in purely political terms—”authoritarian,” “dictatorship,” “repressing opposition”—while the spiritual dimension of its crimes is relegated to a single paragraph, almost as an afterthought. The article notes that the dictatorship has carried out “systematic persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua for years,” including “restrictions on the sacraments and the celebration of the Mass; heightened surveillance; forced disappearances and detentions; exile for bishops, priests, and religious; and the forced closure of Catholic institutions.” Most gravely, it has banned the ordination of priests and deacons in dioceses with exiled bishops—a direct assault on the apostolic succession and the very life of the Church.
The Silence of the Conciliar Sect: A Greater Crime
What the article conspicuously omits is the role of the post-conciliar structures—the “Vatican,” the “papacy” of Leo XIV, and the entire apparatus of the conciliar sect—in enabling this persecution. The Nicaraguan dictatorship’s war against the Church did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred while the structures occupying Rome pursued a policy of false ecumenism, dialogue with persecutors, and the systematic dismantling of Catholic resistance worldwide.
Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) and his predecessors in the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII have consistently refused to exercise the authority of the Chair of Peter against the enemies of the Church. The encyclical Quas Primas of Pius XI, issued on December 11, 1925, explicitly declares that Christ’s royal authority extends not only to Catholic nations but to “all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” and that rulers who refuse to recognize Christ’s reign will face His severe judgment. Yet the current structures occupying Peter’s throne maintain diplomatic niceties with regimes that openly persecute the faithful.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 188.4, states that every ecclesiastical office becomes vacant by the mere fact of public defection from the Catholic faith. The conciliar sect’s failure to condemn, excommunicate, and spiritually combat the Nicaraguan persecutors—while simultaneously advancing the very modernist errors that weaken the Church’s immune system—constitutes a dereliction of duty that cries out to Heaven.
The Death of Brooklyn Rivera: Martyrdom Obscured
Brooklyn Rivera was an Indigenous leader and political prisoner who died after 970 days of incommunicado detention. The Nicaraguan Ministry of Health’s communiqué of May 31 stated: “Despite the enormous and intense medical efforts undertaken to restore the health of our Brother Brooklyn, whose physical and neurological deterioration was the result of a bacterial infection triggered by the COVID-19 virus, we regret to confirm that unfortunately he has departed this plane of existence.”
Secretary Rubio alleged the direct involvement of U.S.-sanctioned Lumberto Ignacio Campbell Hooker in denying medical care to Rivera and preventing his family from burying his remains. At least six of Rivera’s relatives remain in detention according to the U.S. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
The article presents Rivera’s death in purely political terms—a “human rights” violation, a “horrific death” of a “political prisoner.” But what of his soul? What of the spiritual dimension of his suffering? The Catholic Church has always taught that those who suffer death for justice and in defense of the innocent participate in the Cross of Christ. The silence about Rivera’s eternal destiny, about whether he received the last sacraments, about whether he died in the state of grace—this silence is the hallmark of a naturalistic worldview that sees man only as a political animal, not as an immortal soul destined for eternity.
The Persecution of the Church: A Catalogue of Crimes
The article’s brief catalogue of the Nicaraguan regime’s crimes against the Church deserves expansion and contextualization within the framework of Catholic teaching:
Restrictions on the sacraments and the celebration of the Mass: This is not merely a “human rights” violation—it is an attack on the very means of grace. The Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter 1, teaches that the Mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice, not merely a commemorative meal. To restrict or prohibit the Holy Sacrifice is to sever the faithful from the source of supernatural life.
Exile of bishops, priests, and religious: The forced separation of shepherds from their flocks is a diabolical strategy. St. John Chrysostom wrote that the destruction of the Church is not achieved by external persecution alone, but by the removal of its pastors. The Nicaraguan regime’s forced exile of bishops and the subsequent ban on ordinations in their dioceses is an attempt to extinguish the apostolic succession in that nation.
Forced closure of Catholic institutions: Schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions operated by the Church are extensions of her supernatural mission. Their closure is an act of spiritual warfare disguised as political repression.
The Syllabus of Errors and Modernist Apostasy
The Nicaraguan situation cannot be understood apart from the broader context of modernist apostasy within the Church. Pope St. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemns in Proposition 39 the notion that “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.” Yet the modernist regimes of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship, exercise precisely such unlimited power over the Church, restricting her freedom to worship, teach, and sanctify.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), condemned the modernist proposition that “The Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Proposition 57) and that “Simon Peter never even suspected that he had received primacy in the Church from Christ” (Proposition 55). The conciliar sect’s embrace of modernism has effectively neutered the Church’s ability to resist such regimes, for a Church that does not believe in her own divine authority cannot effectively confront those who violate it.
The Limits of Secular Justice
Secretary Rubio’s visa restrictions, while presented as “decisive steps,” are ultimately secular measures applied to a spiritual crisis. Visa restrictions, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure may inconvenience the persecutors, but they cannot convert hearts, restore the freedom of the Church, or save souls. The true remedy for the persecution of the Church in Nicaragua—and worldwide—is the restoration of the integral Catholic faith, the recognition of Christ the King’s public reign over all nations, and the exercise of the Church’s spiritual authority against her enemies.
Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority.” Until this conviction is restored—until the nations are consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the social reign of Christ the King is recognized—secular measures will remain palliatives applied to a mortal wound.
Conclusion: The Call to Spiritual Combat
The persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua is not a “political” problem amenable to “diplomatic” solutions. It is a spiritual war waged by the powers of darkness against the Mystical Body of Christ. The visa restrictions imposed by the Rubio administration, whatever their temporal efficacy, do not address the root cause of the persecution: the modernist apostasy that has weakened the Church’s immune system and the conciliar sect’s refusal to exercise the authority of Peter against the enemies of the Faith.
The faithful must pray for the persecuted Church in Nicaragua, for the repose of the soul of Brooklyn Rivera, and for the conversion of his persecutors. But above all, they must reject the modernist errors that have rendered the post-conciliar structures incapable of defending the Church, and cling to the immutable Tradition that alone can restore Christ’s reign over individuals, families, and nations. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, the modernist synthesis is “the synthesis of all heresies,” and its fruit is the enfeeblement of the Church in the face of her enemies.
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Source:
Rubio Imposes Visa Restrictions On More Than 100 Nicaraguan Officials and Their Families (ncregister.com)
Date: 09.06.2026