SÃO PAULO, Brazil – At least 13 priests, deacons, and members of religious congregations have been illegally detained by the Nicaraguan government since Aug. 1, in what has been the worst wave of persecution to the Church since January.

In the first month of the year, 15 priests, two seminarians, and two bishops – including Rolando Alvarez, bishop of Matagalpa – were sent to the Vatican in exile.

The arrests of 12 clergy members were reported by Nicaragua Nunca Más (Nicaragua Never More), a group founded by seven Nicaraguan human rights activists exiled in Costa Rica in 2019. The organization informed that most of the detainees worked in the Diocese of Matagalpa, which is administered by Alvarez from exile.

The detention of Father Harvin Torrez, who heads the Seminary of Matagalpa, occurred on Aug. 5, according to the local press.

In a statement released on Aug. 3, Nicaragua Nunca Más emphasizes that “many parishes have been harassed” and that there’s no information concerning the current location of some of the detained priests.

The arrested group includes Father Ulises Vega and Father Edgard Sacasa, the two current administrators of the Diocese of Matagalpa; Father Marlon Velasquez, vicar of the Santa Lucia parish in Ciudad Dario; Father Francisco Tercero of the Solingalpa community; Father Jairo Pravia and Father Victor Godoy, in charge of the Immaculate Conception of Mary parish, in Sebaco; Mexican-born Father Raúl Villegas, who was working in a parish in Matiguas; Father Antonio Lopez; Father Salvador Lopez; Deacon Ervin Aguirre; Friar Silvio José Romero; and Friar Ramon Morras.

The statement recalls that the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been facing several losses, like the cancellation of the legal status of Radio Maria, a station that operated in the Central American country for 24 years.

“Since 2018, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has canceled the legal status of at least 419 civic organizations, both Catholic and Protestants, and Catholic religious people, Catholic nuns, workers of Catholic organizations and means of communication, and lay people have been the State violence’s major targets,” the letter read.

Nicaragua Nunca Más concludes the document by demanding the immediate release of all detained priests and of another 140 political prisoners currently held in Nicaraguan penal institutions, among them 25 women.

Between February of 2023 and January of 2024, at least 34 priests were sent to exile by Ortega’s regime, according to Nicaraguan media outlet Confidencial. Such losses corresponded to one fifth of the number of priests it had in 2020, Confidencial said. Matagalpa, Siuna, Bluefields, Estelí, and Managua had been the most impacted dioceses.

Matagalpa alone had lost 40 percent of its clergy by January. According to lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, a Catholic activist who has been monitoring the persecution of the Church from exile in the United States, Matagalpa had 70 active priests before the regime’s move. Now, there are only 22 remaining.

“The sociopolitical and religious situation in Nicaragua now is one of permanent and escalating crisis,” Alvaro Leiva Sanchez, leader of the Nicaraguan Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ANPDH) from exile in Costa Rica.

Leiva said that human rights activists fear for the current conditions of the detained priests. Fr. Marlon Velasquez, for example, “was violently kidnapped by agents of the regime in Ciudad Dario and taken to an unknown location in Managua.”

“We can imagine that he and others may be undergoing torture and illegal imprisonment right now,” he added.

Father Erick Díaz, currently exiled in the United States, posted on X that all such occurrences took place “as the world looked at the events in Venezuela.”

“Almost all our clergy have been exiled, imprisoned, the parishes are left alone. The priests are innocent. Enough with religious persecution,” he declared.

Leiva Sanchez thinks that “Ortega’s regime has no limits and will keep sending the same message to society and to a few segments that still dare to have a critical voice.”

“The Church is no exception in this situation. Today we have a decimated Church after the detentions and deportation of so many clergy members who did nothing but mention the human rights violations in Nicaragua,” he said.

In his opinion, the Vatican is not giving to the Nicaraguan Church the necessary support.

“The high levels of the hierarchy in Rome have been maintaining the same attitude when it comes to the persecution in our nation. I don’t see it backing the Nicaraguan clergy,” Leiva said.