Facing ongoing pressure, more religious orders leave Nicaragua

In the last week, Poor Clares and Carmelite friars have left the country

Two more religious orders have left Nicaragua in recent days, amid widespread persecution of Catholics in the country.

Poor Clare nuns talk with Bishop Silvio Baez in 2013, at a Managua monastery. Courtesy photo.

While one order says it left because of a lack of vocations, sources say that government pressure was almost certainly a factor in its departure, especially as government officials have warned in recent months that religious in the country would see their residency permits rescinded.

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Around 30 Poor Clare nuns were forced to abandon their contemplative convents in the cities of Managua and Chinandega on Monday.

According to local media Mosaico CSI, the nuns were notified Monday evening that they had been ordered out of their convent, and were only allowed to take some of their belongings when they fled.

The Poor Clares’ legal personality was canceled by government directive almost two years ago, in May 2023. The dissolution was classified as “voluntary,” allowing the nuns to transfer their property to a third party, and to continue living in Nicaragua — until now..

The Poor Clares in Nicaragua had two contemplative communities, dedicated adoration of the Eucharist, and supported by making hosts and liturgical ornaments and vestments.

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Less than one week before the nuns were forced into exile, the Central American province of the male branch of the Discalced Carmelites announced Jan. 23 that all friars would be leaving the country after 50 years in Nicaragua.

The province said the friars were leaving because of a lack of vocations, and that officials hoped to one day send friars back to the country.

In the last Carmelite Mass at the parish, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes said largely the same: that the friars were leaving Nicaragua due to “a lack of personnel,” as they had to shut down two parishes in Guatemala and their Nicaraguan parish.

But the provincial statement made no mention of the supposed closure of the parishes in Guatemala, while local outlets have indicated that the departure might be due to pressure from the Nicaraguan regime.

And sources in the region said the Carmelites have faced more than vocational troubles in Nicaragua.

“It’s a mix of both things,” a source close to the Nicaraguan bishops’ conference told The Pillar. “It’s true that the Carmelites did not have vocations [in Nicaragua] but this climate of persecution also doesn’t help with motivating [religious communities] to stay in the country.”

Officials from the Ortega regime had a meeting in October with the superiors of religious congregations in the country, in which they were told that residency permits would not be renewed for foreign priests and sisters once they expired, local sources told The Pillar in December.

“They also said that those who insisted on renewing their permits would be charged more than usual for the process and still be denied, so that they should not even bother,” another senior source close to the bishops’ conference told The Pillar.

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A March 2022 law gives Nicaragua’s government new latitude to close civilly registered non-profits in the country and to limit the activity of foreign NGOs. The Ortega regime has used the law to expel various congregations from the country and see the country’s Catholic Charities operation dissolved.

Under the same law, four Catholic universities, dozens of Catholic non-profits, and the legal entities under which many religious congregations operated were closed.

Many congregations have been expelled from the country under the 2022 law, including the Franciscans, Jesuits, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, and a female Trappist community.

In some instances, some members of these institute remain in the country, but without any legal structure to support them. For example, a small number of Jesuits remain in Nicaragua, as did the Poor Clares until Jan. 28.

Persecution against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua began during the 2018-2019 protests against the Ortega regime. The persecution has intensified in the past two years, particularly after Pope Francis in December published a pastoral letter to the Nicaraguan people.

In the letter, the pope encouraged trust amid difficulty, saying “precisely in the most difficult moments, when it becomes humanly impossible to understand what God wants from us, we are called not to doubt His care and mercy.”

Since the start of the persecution against the Catholic Church, the Nicaraguan regime has forced the closure of dozens of Catholic TV and radio stations, the dissolution of the legal structures of religious congregations, Catholic universities, and Catholic foundations, and the seizure of their properties.

More than 250 clergy and religious have been forced into exile, including four bishops and almost one-fifth of the country’s priests.

On November 12, 2024, the president of the Nicaraguan bishops’ conference, Bishop Carlos Herrera, OFM, was forced into exile after criticizing a pro-regime mayor during Sunday Mass in the Jinotega cathedral.