Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, has demanded democracy within the Catholic Church, calling it an “organized mafia”, after Pope Francis criticized the recent 26-year prison sentence against the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Alvarez.
“They are a mafia; look at how many crimes they have committed,” Ortega has asserted, ironizing the respect he may have for the bishops he has met in Nicaragua.
According to him, “they were Somozistas”, that is, followers of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.
Likewise, Ortega has affirmed that he does not believe “neither in popes nor in kings” because “they act like an organized mafia”, as reported by ‘La Prensa’.
Last February 10, the Nicaraguan justice system sentenced Bishop Alvarez to 26 years in prison, stripping him of his nationality after he refused to leave the country with 222 other political prisoners who were banished from the country and sent to the United States.
After the sentence, Pope Francis spoke for the first time about the imprisonment:
“The news coming from Nicaragua has saddened me very much, and I cannot but remember with concern the bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, whom I love so much”.
With information from LGI
More: Latin America news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Read More from The Rio Times