COUNTRY PROFILE NICARAGUA
Persecution of Christians in Nicaragua is increasing, with the country’s record for religious freedom labeled “abysmal” by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 129 In 2026, it recommended Nicaragua be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). According to USCIRF’s report, the regime has “sustained its total crackdown on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) by arresting, imprisoning, and exiling religious leaders and adherents, arbitrarily canceling the legal status of religious organizations, and consolidating its power to harass and intimidate worshipers." 130 In October 2025, Pope Leo XIV was given a copy of Nicaragua, a Persecuted Church, which showed more than 1,000 aggressions had been committed against the Church since 2018. Religious persecution started intensifying in April 2018 after clergy supported peaceful protests over various issues, including human rights abuses by the state. Aggressions against the Church have included confiscation and arbitrary closure of property, and public threats. 131 Believers who have raised their voices against the government have experienced surveillance, intimidation, imprisonment, and even exile. The Nicaraguan government has used arbitrary deprivation of nationality to target a wide range of its opponents, including members of Christian denominations. Since February 2023, there have been 452 documented cases of Nicaraguans being declared “traitors to the homeland” in court rulings and losing their nationality. 132 At least 261 members of the Catholic clergy have been expelled from the country, including Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera, president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, in November 2024 (see case study, right). Nearly 140 priests and more than 90 religious Sisters have been forced into exile, as well as dozens of seminarians and three deacons. 133
SELECTED INCIDENTS
or warrants. It was reported that they were charged with treason and “undermining national integrity." 137
AUGUST 2024 Father Denis Martínez García was arrested while on his way to celebrate Mass in Matagalpa and exiled to the Vatican six days later. 134 All arrests that month occurred just three days after the state exiled seven priests to Rome, six of whom belong to Matagalpa Diocese. 135 JANUARY 2025 Police officers and officials from the Attorney General’s office seized St. Aloysius Gonzaga Seminary in Matagalpa Diocese, briefly detaining at least 30 seminarians before forcibly removing them from the site, on the afternoon of Monday, January 20. The property was expropriated by the state. 136 JULY 2025 In a series of raids, Nicaraguan national police took Protestant Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas and seven other Christians into custody without warning
MARCH 2026 Ortega’s regime prevented thousands of public Holy Week processions in Nicaragua. Since 2019, the dictatorship has banned more than 27,000 processions and deployed some 14,000 agents to monitor churches. 138 MARCH 2026 The government prohibited the ordinations of priests and deacons in four dioceses whose bishops remain in exile. 139 JUNE 2026 80-year-old Bishop (Emeritus) Abelardo Mata of Estelí was detained at a medical center and taken into police custody on Monday, June 29. The previous day, he had invoked prayers for Nicaragua’s persecuted Church at Mass. He was released several hours later. 140
26 | Persecuted and Forgotten?
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