Ortega regime freezes Catholic Church retirement fund for priests amid crackdown

The regime of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has frozen the Catholic Church’s retirement fund for priests, in its latest attack against the church, according to a new report. 

“Elderly priests are not receiving their pensions from the national insurance fund for priests, the product of years of contributing, due to the bank accounts of the Catholic Church being blocked,” according to lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?”

According to Molina, the national insurance fund for priests was created 20 years ago to function as a sort of retirement fund for priests. Currently, the fund helps give a monthly pension of $300 to retired priests that are 75 years old or older, and $150 a month to those who are between 65 and 74 years old. 

“This fund has functioned for more than 20 years without any complications. Among the latest disastrous measures of the dictatorship against the accounts of the Catholic Church, they have disabled this fund, such that elderly priests can’t collect their pensions. This is one of the most dramatic conditions of the current situation,” Molina noted.

In May, Ortega froze the bank account of the parishes in the country after it accused several dioceses of the Catholic Church in the Central American country of money laundering. 

Investigations "confirmed the unlawful removal of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered by law to be frozen," the police said in a statement, adding that the funds had entered the country irregularly.  

The relationship between Ortega’s regime and the Catholic church has deteriorated since 2018, after the Nicaraguan government violently cracked down on anti-government protests, leaving more than 355 people dead and more than 2,000 injured. 

During that time, the church offered shelter to many fleeing the crackdown and then sought to work as an intermediary between the regime and the opposition. According to Ortega, however, the church was trying to implement a coup. 

Since then, Ortega cut off ties with the Vatican and has systematically expelled several nuns and missionaries from the country, and has closed down countless Catholic radio and television stations.