NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {L} ast month, Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime banned the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus, from the country and illegally seized the assets of the prominent Catholic religious order. Such dramatic action against the church, its organizations, and its servants is, unfortunately, not unusual in Nicaragua today.

In February, Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega expelled 222 political prisoners to the United States. One of them refused to board the plane. Bishop Rolando Alvarez demanded to stay in Nicaragua and continue serving his flock. One day later, he was convicted of “treason,” without evidence or a trial, and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Those unfamiliar with the current political climate in Nicaragua might strain to understand why the government would flout due process and respond with such unbridled brutality to this priest’s simple request. But Alvarez was an outspoken critic of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. And criticizing dictators is always risky business.

Alvarez isn’t the only Catholic leader in Nicaragua to decry the government’s crimes and injustices, and he isn’t the only believer to experience brutal backlash from the ironfisted couple in power. The Ortega-Murillo regime has waged a war of persecution against the Catholic Church because it sees the church as the last obstacle preventing them from complete control.

Daniel Ortega first rose to prominence in 1979 during the Nicaraguan Revolution, served as president in 1985–90, and has held that office continuously after being elected to it again in 2007. Since then, he has used government coercion and violent oppression to maintain his hold on power, jailing political opponents and appointing his wife as his second in command. In 2018, the dictatorial rule was threatened by protests and an attempted coup. Ortega and Murillo accused the Catholic Church of helping to spark the rebellion.

In response, the Ortega-Murillo regime unleashed a campaign of harassment and persecution to silence the Catholic Church and all dissenters within its ranks. Since then, dozens of priests have been arrested or expelled from the country, churches have been raided, and sacred images have been burned. Nicaraguan authorities accused the Catholic Church in Nicaragua of money-laundering and froze its bank accounts.

Central American Catholics have a long history of protesting against injustice, however, and they are not easily silenced. The government has expanded its anti-Catholic campaign to include educational institutions and religious orders, in an effort to squelch all hints of resistance. The government has closed more than two dozen religious schools, including Central American University. After banishing the Jesuits who ran CUA, the government reopened it as a secular university. The government has also shut down thousands of Church-affiliated organizations and NGOs, often branding them as “foreign agents.”

The Jesuits are not the first Catholic order forced out of Nicaragua. In June 2022, the government canceled the legal status of the Missionaries of Charity, the order of women religious founded by Mother Teresa, forcing its members to leave the country. The Missionaries of Charity had been in the country more than 30 years, running a children’s nursery, a nursing home, and a home for abused and abandoned girls.

Waging a war against the church and its leaders entails a certain number of risks, especially when nearly 45 percent of Nicaraguans identify as Catholic. Given the church’s broad influence, the government calculates that it can’t allow priests and religious leaders, widely regarded as voices of moral authority, to criticize their policies and behavior without risking a popular uprising.

America has long been a proponent of global religious freedom, and we must join with our allies to urgently intervene in this deeply troubling situation. The U.S. government has responded to these severe violations of religious freedom, imposing economic sanctions, canceling visas, and limiting aid. The State Department has added Nicaragua to its list of “countries of particular concern,” and the United States has joined the United Nations and the Organization of American States to denounce Nicaragua’s violations, calling on the regime to shift course.

But the pressure we’ve applied has not yet changed Ortega’s mind. More must be done.

Ortega is working to extend his influence outside of Central America by partnering with like-minded dictators. He recently announced plans to open a permanent embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea, with Kim Jong Un sending a representative in return to Nicaragua. Ortega has already supported Putin in the war against Ukraine and cozied up to Syria and Iran, authoritarian regimes that regularly violate human rights.

The church has become the “last bastion” opposing oppression in Nicaragua. As the president of the University of Notre Dame recently declared, the attempt by Ortega and Murillo to extinguish Catholicism in Nicaragua demands world condemnation on a larger, louder scale. Religious and government leaders across the globe need to band together and loudly denounce Ortega’s unholy war.