CASE STUDY TOP CATHOLIC BISHOP EXPELLED
The expulsion of the president of the Nicaraguan bishops’ conference from the country occurred without fanfare or ceremony. On November 12, 2024, he was placed on a flight out of Managua. As the plane left Nicaragua’s capital, the government believed he had left his homeland forever. Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez of Jinotega was flying to Guatemala, a country he knew well. He had studied theology and philosophy there while training as a Franciscan priest. But when he landed in Guatemala City less than two hours later, he was not just a visitor. He had become an exile, forced to live with a Franciscan community outside the country where he was born. Bishop Herrera of Jinotega was forced out of Nicaragua after speaking out against the local mayor for continually organizing noisy activities outside San Juan Bautista Cathedral while Mass was being held. Sources in the country have stated authorities across the country often stage noisy events outside major churches, including a boxing tournament outside the Cathedral in León. Blaring music outside the cathedral had interrupted Masses. So at the evening Mass on Sunday, November 10, Bishop Herrera spoke out about the constant, and calculated, disruption of services: “What the mayor and all the local authorities are doing is sacrilegious... We ask God’s forgiveness for them and for ourselves.”
Sources David Agren, “Nicaragua regime expels bishops' conference president," UCANews , November 15, 2024 https://www.ucanews.com/news/nicaragua-regime- expels-bishops-conference-president/107001 “President of Nicaragua's Bishops' Conference exiled to Guatemala," Vatican News , November 14, 2024 https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2024- 11/nicaragua-bishops-conference-president-exiled- guatemala.html [Both sites accessed 07/29/26] .
For simply speaking out, his nationality was revoked.
In the days leading up to Bishop Herrera’s expulsion, Jinotega Diocese’s Facebook page — which was used to live stream Mass and other services — was taken down. At the time he left, priests across the country had been banned from entering hospitals, so they could not anoint the sick in accordance with the scriptural tradition (James 5:14ff). Bishop Herrera, who had been the president of Nicaraguan bishops' conference since 2021, was the third Catholic bishop to be expelled. A fourth, Rt. Rev. Silvio José Báez, the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, was not expelled but forced to flee the country in 2019 after receiving death threats.
In March 2026, Nicaraguan authorities prohibited all ordinations in the four dioceses where the bishops are in exile, including Bishop Herrera’s diocese Jinotega.
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