In apparent gesture to Pope Leo, Nicaragua allows diaconal ordinations

The government had largely suspended ordinations in Nicaragua since last summer.

Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes was permitted to ordain eight transitional deacons in Managua on June 7, in an apparent gesture of goodwill by the Nicaraguan regime following the election of Pope Leo XIV.

A liturgy at the La Purisima Seminary in Managua, Nicaragua. Credit: La Purisima/Facebook.

The government had largely suspended ordinations in Nicaragua since the summer of 2024. While the Archdiocese of Managua used to ordain priests twice a year, this is the first group of ordinations in 2025, and it is solely composed of transitional deacons.

Brenes ordained eight seminarians as deacons during the Pentecost Vigil in the Managua cathedral.

In his homily, Brenes talked about his experience in the recent conclave and said that “it’s sad, in other sister churches, especially outside of Latin America… to listen to brother bishops with vocational crises, that have had many years without an ordination, or that just ordained one priest after 10 or 15 years.”

Brenes added that “we must always cast the net. If a fisherman doesn’t cast the net, he won’t catch anything. We must continue doing it and listen to the Lord’s voice. If we don’t cast them, we won’t have the fruits the Lord wants to give us.”

Before this year, the Archdiocese of Managua routinely had two ordination classes per year.

The archdiocese has a healthy stream of vocations, with more than 100 seminarians in the diocesan seminary and a smaller Redemptoris Mater seminary run by the Neocatechumenal Way.

In 2024, nine priests were ordained in Managua in January and 16 were ordained in August.

While this year has seen only one ordination - consisting only of deacons, rather than priests - it still appears to mark a loosening of restrictions put in place by the regime last summer.

On July 26, 2024, the Diocese of Estelí saw the ordination of three transitional deacons suspended one day before it was supposed to be held. Local media indicated that the police ordered the cancellation.

The same day, Estelí’s diocesan administrator, 80-year-old priest Frutos Valle Salmerón, was questioned by police and placed under house arrest.

Since then, most dioceses in Nicaragua have not been permitted to ordain any clergy. A rare exception was made in the Diocese of León, where Bishop René Sándigo, who is close to the regime, was allowed to ordain eight priests in August 2024. Managua was also allowed to hold ordinations in August 2024, although the reason is unclear, and the typical January ordinations in 2025 were not held.

Nicaraguan sources told The Pillar that the recent ordination could be a gesture of goodwill of the Nicaraguan regime.

“[Nicaraguan dictator Daniel] Ortega is taking a wait-and-see approach to Pope Leo. There’s no freedom for the Church in the country yet, but there have not been any more arrested or exiled priests and religious, nor seizure of Church property. They’re still trying to see how Leo will approach Nicaragua,” a source close to the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference told The Pillar.

The biggest question in Nicaragua is that of its episcopal appointments. Pope Francis resisted the Nicaraguan regime’s push for bishops who were more friendly to the government, leaving the episcopal situation in the country at a stalemate, according to local sources. Multiple dioceses in the country are led by bishops who are past retirement age or are in exile.

“Ortega’s goal is to get friendly bishops. He’d love to have Bishop Sándigo as the Archbishop of Managua… and some other friendly priests as bishops in Matagalpa and other dioceses with exiled bishops. So he’ll play nice and see if he can get anything in return,” a Nicaraguan priest told The Pillar.

And while the regime is allowing ordinations to take place in Managua, other dioceses with even more dire situations are still waiting to be allowed to ordain more priests.

In recent years, the government’s persecution has led to the exile of more than 100 priests from the country. Including priests who have died and one priest who has left the priesthood, Nicaragua has lost about 20% of its priests since 2019.

The situation in Matagalpa is particularly dire, as it has lost around two-thirds of its clergy, mostly in the last two years.

Before the current persecution and the arrest, imprisonment and exile of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the Diocese of Matagalpa had a lively vocational situation.

According to one Matagalpa priest, the diocese had more than 120 seminarians before Álvarez’s arrest.

Even with the persecution and the seizure of the local seminary, the diocese still has around 70 seminarians.

“Bishop Álvarez is a great vocational apostle, so we had a full seminary. Some of the kids got scared and left seminary or were forced to leave the country and continued their studies in Spain or the U.S., so the number really went down, but it’s still solid,” the priest told The Pillar.

Still, the priest shortage in the diocese has left many Catholics without regular access to the sacraments.

More than half of the 28 parishes of Matagalpa do not have a parish priest. Most of these parishes are in rural communities, with small chapels that only had Mass biweekly or monthly even before the persecution.

Now, even some of the main churches are unable to have Mass every Sunday. Some are visited by priests from other dioceses, or priests who already have other pastoral assignments but fill in when they can.

Some rural communities are kept alive by laypeople, deacons, or seminarians who lead liturgies of the word or prayer services as frequently as they can.

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 last 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.