Angelus News | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

WORLD
Bishop Rolando Álvarez being
interviewed on Nicaraguan TV.
| CANAL 4 NICARAGUA
■ First images released of
Nicaraguan bishop in prison
New video and pictures showed jailed Bishop Rolando
Álvarez in a Nicaraguan prison for the first time.
“Thanks be to God I’m well, with a lot of inner strength,
with a lot of peace in the Lord and the most holy Virgin,”
Álvarez said in a video released March 24 by a news outlet
with government ties.
One video showed Álvarez eating with his brother and sister
in a clean and well-furnished room. But critics of Nicaraguan
president Daniel Ortega said the images were staged.
“The scenography of the dictatorship was repugnant and
cynical and does not expunge its crime,” said Bishop Silvio
José Báez, an auxiliary bishop of Managua living in exile in
the U.S.
The prison where Álvarez is being held is known for overcrowding
and lack of medical attention for prisoners. He was
sentenced in February to more than 26 years in prison for
being a “traitor to the homeland” after refusing to be exiled
from Nicaragua.
■ Disavowing the doctrine of discovery
The Vatican formally repudiated a centuries-old legal
doctrine long criticized by anti-colonial activists.
“The Catholic Church … repudiates those concepts that
fail to recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous
peoples,” read a March 30 joint statement from the Dicasteries
for Promoting Integral Human Development and for
Culture and Education.
The statement noted that the doctrine, which provided
the legal framework for colonizing settlers to dispossess
lands of indigenous peoples, had been outlined in several
papal bulls and was “manipulated for political purposes” by
colonial powers. It also said that the bulls were “written in
a specific historical period and linked to political questions
[that] have never been considered expressions of the
Catholic faith.”
The statement follows calls from indigenous communities
in Canada last year to Pope Francis to rescind the doctrine
of discovery.
■ Mexican government blamed
for fire at immigrant facility
Catholic leaders are criticizing the Mexican government’s
response to a fire at an immigration detention center in
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, that killed at least 38.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said
that the March 27 fire, which started in a section of the
center that held 68 male migrants, was started by migrants
to protest their deportations.
But Catholic officials suggested the fire was a sign of government
neglect at the facility, which held mostly Central
American immigrants.
“Enough with the euphemisms. We must not accept nor
tolerate soft expressions or decorous words that are given to
what truly constitutes a detention center, which does not
offer dignified or safe conditions,” the Guatemalan bishops’
migrant ministry said in a March 27 statement.
Mexican officials later announced they would investigate
the deaths as homicides, after video footage appeared to
show guards failing to respond to the fire as the migrants
attempted to escape.
Father Hans Zollner, SJ
| CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
■ Top Vatican abuse
accountability expert quits
Father Hans Zollner, SJ, an internationally recognized
expert on protecting children and vulnerable adults from
clerical sex abuse, said “structural and practical issues”
led to his abrupt resignation from the Vatican’s Pontifical
Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Zollner said that he had “noticed issues that need to be
urgently addressed and which have made it impossible
for me to continue further” in his role. He also said he
was concerned by the lack of “responsibility, compliance,
accountability, and transparency” of the commission.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the commission’s
head, publicly voiced his disagreement with the priest’s
claims.
“I am surprised, disappointed, and strongly disagree with
[Zollner’s] publicly issued assertions challenging the commission’s
effectiveness,” the American cardinal said.
4 • ANGELUS • April 21, 2023