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In a groundbreaking interview, Bishop Rolando Alvarez attested to the power of prayer which sustained him and gave him hope, during the year he spent in a Nicaraguan jail for criticizing the regime’s abuses of human rights and religious persecution.
“I always thought and believed in my freedom,” said Bishop Alvarez, speaking to EWTN last month, marking a full year after his release from Nicaragua to the Vatican in January 2024.
“I always believed in my release. When? I don’t know, I didn’t know, but I always hoped to be set free and what sustained me was prayer.”
Such words closely resemble the style of those uttered by George Cardinal Pell upon his own release from prison in Australia, after judges unanimously acquitted of the charges of sexual abuse, for which he served over 400 days in prison.
The joint testimony of two prelates – one of whom of course died suddenly in January 2023 – comes as a true testament to the timeless teaching of the Catholic Faith which is so often neglected today. Their utter reliance upon prayer in the face of unjust persecution and imprisonment – and belief in the power of that prayer – demonstrates a liveliness of Faith that is nowadays often left aside by those who favor having the Church conform to modernity and abandoning the “outdated” forms of Catholic life.
Alvarez – Sentenced but Undaunted
“In prison I learned two things that can be mistakes: for those on the outside, thinking that the prisoner will never get out. That is a serious mistake. And for the prisoner, thinking that he will never get out is another serious mistake.”
For Alvarez, there was no question of his being released, but simply a question of when it would happen.
Alvarez rose to international prominence due to his opposition to, and subsequent persecution from, the regime of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.
Consecrated bishop in 2011, he is the Bishop of Matagalpa and – since 2022 – administrator of the Diocese of Esteli. As an outspoken critic of Ortega’s abuse of human rights and religious persecution, Alvarez earned himself a position as one of the state’s chief-perceived trouble makers. He was physically followed by police in his activities, and then – amidst the increasing government crackdown on religious activity – was arrested by police in August 2022.
The authorities placed him under house confinement, and soon after formally arrested him, accusing him of inciting “acts of hatred against the population (…) with the purpose of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua and attacking the constitutional authorities.”
Ortega’s arrest of the bishop and his aides drew international public condemnation including from the United Nations and certain vocal politicians in the U.S. who raised the matter repeatedly in Congress.
On February 10, 2023, Ortega’s government served Alvarez with a jail sentence of 26 years and four months, accusing him of being “a traitor to the country,” of “undermining national security and sovereignty, spreading fake news through information technology, obstructing an official in the performance of his duties,” and further accusing him of “aggravated disobedience or contempt of authority.” He was aged 56 at the time of his sentencing.
A number of political prisoners of the Ortega regime shortly prior to his sentencing had been exiled to the U.S., but in a demonstration of devotedness to his flock Alvarez had refused to leave Nicaragua without consulting properly with his clergy and people.
He was released for two days in July 2023 amidst negotiations to have him released internationally, but then hastily thrown back behind bars after negotiations broke down and he yet again refused to leave the country, choosing to stay with his diocese.
After much campaigning in the political arena, along with the subtle machinations of Vatican diplomacy behind the scenes, a number of Catholic clergy were released to the Vatican from Nicaraguan jails in October 2023, but still Alvarez remained behind bars. To the public eye, it seemed as though the zealous bishop was destined to languish in jail for the fullness of his 26-year term.
But in an unexpected breakthrough, Alvarez and 17 other clergy were released from jail and sent to the Vatican, January 15, 2024. Their release came close on the heels of yet more Catholic clergy being arrested by the regime indicating the continued persecution of the Catholic Church in the country, which has indeed only continued.
Since his release to the Vatican, Alvarez has kept a low-profile, reportedly living in the grounds of the Vatican City State but not properly appearing before cameras until his participation in the 2024 Synod on Synodality.
“Once I was out,” he commented, “I realized that it wasn’t just my prayer, but also the prayer of all God’s faithful and holy people, not only Nicaraguan, but spread throughout the world, who are the people to whom I reiterate my deep gratitude and I insist that what sustained me was prayer.”
His release and current life outside of jail, Alvarez described as “a supernatural action of God. There is no human explanation for me to be with you at this moment.”
The bishop’s devotion to his diocese was also evidenced by his intention to resign as bishop upon his arrival in Rome, as he told EWTN. Pope Francis, said Alvarez, asked the bishop to remain in his position from his base in Rome. “I don’t call it exile because I am not exiled, I am liberated. I do not feel exiled, but liberated,” he commented. “And in the diaspora. In the diaspora, faith always grows and hope is strengthened.”
Referencing a letter recently penned by Pope Francis to Nicaragua’s Catholics, Alvarez summarized his lively and active Faith: “even in those moments when hope turns to darkness, we have to firmly believe that God is at work in the history of human beings and in the history of peoples, and I am convinced of that and that is why I am a man of hope and I believe that my people, my nation, is a nation of hope.”
A Lively Faith
Alvarez and Pell – the former imprisoned for his denouncement of injustice and religious persecution, and the latter for unjust charges of sexual abuse which he always denied – appear as timely examples of what true vitality of Catholicism looks like.
Pell – the unmistakable Australian amongst the Roman Curia – was known for his adherence to Church teaching on a number of topics which are currently under attack. These included his opposition to female ordination and the abolition of clerical celibacy, but particularly his opposition to the promotion of homosexuality and abortion. Indeed, the true extent of his work to defend Church teaching only became known after his death when his authorship of the explosive, and formerly anonymous, Demos memo was revealed.
But like Alvarez, his life was rocked by being handed a jail sentence, which in Pell’s case was a term of six years in jail on five convictions of the sexual abuse of minors. The judge ruled that Pell could not be paroled for three years and eight months, telling the 77-year-old prelate he may die in jail, and describing the offences as “brazen and forceful” and “breathtakingly arrogant.”
His release in 2020 is well documented, after the judges unanimously acquitted him on the basis of the incredibly unreliable evidence.
Pell described his jail term “a gift and a grace,” upon his release. “God writes straight with crooked lines, and given that I was sentenced to jail, I do regard it as a gift and a grace.”
“I’d have to hasten to add that I still regret that it happened,” he noted. “I wouldn’t have chosen it, but there I was and, please God, I did my Christian duty while I was in jail.”
He, like Alvarez, spoke about the importance of prayer, especially for helping develop forgiveness: “First of all, you have to keep praying. Reading the Scriptures, reading your breviary, even going to Mass.”
Writing about his unjust imprisonment in his “Prison Journal,” Pell commented how “I believe in God’s providence. I never chose this situation and I worked hard to avoid it, but here I am and I must strive to do God’s will.”
Such lines are indicative of a much more profound understanding of the relationship which each soul is called to have with God: indeed they are far more Catholic than those lines uttered by many Church-men who prioritize “inclusion” and “diversity” at the cost of dogma and doctrine.
Indeed, it has to be said that in a time when Catholics are told that, in order to understand the chief current project of the Vatican – the Synod – they must properly understand sex, is it not without doubt time for the Church to return to prioritizing the living of the Faith in the manner demonstrated by Cdl. Pell and Bp. Alvarez? Is it not time for a simple practice of the Faith: one which is formed on the clear teachings of the Gospel and not the verbs ramblings of Curial bureaucrats?
The manner in which they lived their Catholic Faith during their persecution is of the same style which all Catholics are called to practice: namely to develop a complete reliance upon God and the power of prayer. Such was the witness of the Martyrs of every age, and it remains still the calling of the Church for all Her children – even though Her earthly leaders often forget it.
In the manner of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Way of spirituality, the simple but resolute witness of Alvarez and Pell to their relationship with God via unwavering faith and steadfast prayer, should be a lesson for the whole Church today.