6/23/2025 Nicaragua (International Christian Concern) — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has designated Wednesday, June 25, as a special day of prayer for the church in Nicaragua. Since offering shelter to student protesters in 2018, the Catholic Church has come under sustained fire from the Ortega-Murillo regime, part of the government’s larger effort to eliminate all forms of political and civil dissent.

While Protestant Christianity has exploded in popularity in Nicaragua during recent decades, the Catholic Church remains a critical institution in the country, and more than 30% of the population self-identifies as Catholic.

The Ortega-Murillo regime has aggressively targeted the Catholic Church in Nicaragua since 2018 when some churches decided to shelter student protesters from police brutality. Seen as an organized force and a threat to the president’s total control of the country, the church has faced an unrelenting barrage of legal challenges and watched as many of its leaders have been imprisoned or exiled.

Led by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has exiled hundreds of priests, pastors, and other religious figures in recent years, leaving many communities without leadership.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report earlier this year calling the state of religious freedom in Nicaragua abysmal and urging the U.S. Department of State to continue designating Nicaragua as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).

The Department of State added Nicaragua to the Special Watchlist of countries with particularly severe violations of religious freedom in 2019 — a designation that continued until 2022 when it was raised to the CPC list. The latter designation indicates increased concern about the state of religious freedom in Nicaragua and normally carries with it certain legislatively mandated consequences in the form of sanctions.

In its attempt to control the church, the Nicaraguan government has resorted to “arbitrarily arresting, imprisoning, and exiling religious leaders and adherents; canceling the legal status of religious organizations; and harassing and intimidating worshipers,” according to USCIRF’s recent report.

“The Ortega-Murillo regime,” the report goes on to say, “also harassed religious leaders and worshipers through threats, conspicuous monitoring of religious services, and acts of vandalism, including against members of the primarily indigenous Moravian Church.”

Nicaragua withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council in February, days after a group of U.N. experts released a strongly worded report rebuking it for systematically cracking down on human rights, democratic norms, and religious groups.

“We are seeing the methodical repression of anyone who dares to challenge Ortega and Murillo’s grip on power,” said Ariela Peralta, an expert who contributed to the report. “This is a government at war with its own people.”

The Ortega regime claims that the U.N. and the Organization of American States — both of which have opposed Nicaragua’s crackdown on religious groups — are part of an international smear campaign against it. According to Reuters, Murillo denounced the U.N. report as “falsehoods” and “slander.”

In addition to announcing his wife as co-president earlier this year, Ortega has brought the legislative and judicial branches under his authority as well.

Thousands of nongovernmental organizations have lost their legal status due to a murky 2018 law on funding, with the Catholic Church experiencing particularly targeted attention due to its outspoken criticism of the regime’s sordid human rights record and its decision to shelter student protesters.

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