The Nicaraguan authorities said on Sunday that they had released 19 clergymen who had been jailed and handed them over to the Vatican, the latest development in the autocratic government’s longstanding persecution of the Roman Catholic Church. Among those set free was Bishop Rolando Álvarez, one of the most prominent critics of the government left in Nicaragua, who had been convicted of treason and sentenced to 26 years in prison last February. Another bishop, Isidoro Mora, 15 priests and two seminarians were also released. Silvio Báez, a Nicaraguan bishop in exile in the United States, celebrated the news in a Sunday Mass in Miami on Sunday, saying that “the criminal Sandinista dictatorship” of President Daniel Ortega “has not been able to overcome the power of God.”The release came after Pope Francis drew attention to the attacks on the church in his New Year’s Day address, telling the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square that he was “following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom.”

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Persons: Bishop Rolando Álvarez, Isidoro Mora, Silvio Báez, Daniel Ortega “, Pope Francis, ” Organizations: Roman Catholic Church, Sandinista Locations: Nicaragua, Nicaraguan, United States, Miami, St