Holy See postpones Nicaraguan bishops’ ad limina visit
The Holy See postponed the Nicaraguan bishops’ ad limina visit until next year, with no new date, citing a lack of appropriate conditions. Priests said bishops fear they may be barred from returning to Nicaragua if they travel to Rome, potentially leaving the Church in the country without bishops. Four of Nicaragua’s nine active bishops are in exile, including Bishops Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, Silvio Báez, Isidoro Mora, and Rolando Álvarez. The Nicaraguan government has also banned the ordination of deacons and priests in several dioceses.
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The Holy See has postponed the Nicaraguan bishops’ planned ad limina visit until next year, without setting a date, because it said appropriate conditions for the bishops’ participation did not exist. Church representatives and observers cited government pressure and the risk that bishops who travel abroad might not be allowed to return to Nicaragua.
Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference, announced the postponement. He said the Holy See had deferred the visit because “the appropriate conditions do not exist” for members of the conference. The Vatican visit, normally held by bishops about every five years, provides an opportunity to report on dioceses and concludes with an audience with the pope.
A priest serving in Nicaragua, speaking anonymously, said bishops face the possibility of being barred from returning if they leave the country. He described postponing the trip as a matter of prudence, warning that the Church could be left without bishops if those still in Nicaragua travelled and could not come back. An exiled priest also cited government pressure and the risk of bishops being stranded abroad.
Nicaragua has nine active bishops, four of whom are in exile: Herrera, Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Báez, Bishop Isidoro Mora, and Bishop Rolando Álvarez. Herrera was expelled in November 2024; Báez left in 2019 after criticizing the government; and Mora and Álvarez were expelled in January 2024.
The article reports that the government has prohibited the ordination of deacons and priests in the dioceses of Jinotega, Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí, whose bishops are absent from the country. Bishop emeritus Abelardo Mata, 80, was reportedly arrested after praying for the persecuted Church and confined to his home in Tisma, where he was apparently not permitted to leave.
Martha Patricia Molina, who documents attacks on the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, said the strained relationship between the Church and the government made the visit inappropriate. She noted that the bishops’ last ad limina visit was in 2017 and said the government does not allow the exiled bishops’ names to be mentioned.
Herrera had met Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 12 during a gathering of bishops’ conference presidents. The Holy See Press Office had not responded to the outlet’s inquiry about the postponement at the time of publication.
The Church’s pastoral mission under authoritarian repression
The Church’s pastoral mission does not cease under authoritarian repression, but the conditions in which it can be carried out may be radically narrowed. When rulers suppress worship, remove pastors, intimidate believers, or silence Christian teaching, the Church is called to preserve communion, serve the faithful, witness to the truth through patience and courageous fidelity, and defend religious freedom. The form of that mission must respond to what is possible: where public dialogue is blocked, steadfast presence and suffering may themselves become a witness; where room remains, pastoral care, formation, and public appeal should continue.
Authoritarian pressure can target more than public worship. It may remove bishops from their dioceses, imprison or expel priests, close religious institutions, restrict Catholic education and publishing, and intimidate laypeople. Pius XII described the consequences of such measures: when bishops cannot govern their dioceses or guide their priests and people, the Church’s ordinary pastoral structure is gravely weakened; when Catholic institutions and public communication are suppressed, the faithful are deprived of important means of formation and witness.
The harm is not only institutional. John Paul II recalled that, under Nazi and Soviet rule in Hungary, the Church was pushed out of public life, Catholics were treated as second-class citizens, and religious instruction was obstructed, leaving generations with limited access to the faith. Yet believers continued to witness through persecution, imprisonment, loss of work, and social exclusion.
This helps clarify why repression is a pastoral crisis: it seeks to weaken people’s access to the Gospel, the sacraments, Catholic teaching, and the community that sustains faith. But it does not make the Church’s mission disappear. It makes fidelity more difficult and often more dependent on the courage and endurance of the whole people of God.
In Ecclesiam Suam, Paul VI considers a setting in which rulers deny spiritual rights and meaningful dialogue is not available. He describes the Church’s suffering as giving voice to an oppressed society, and writes:
The only witness that the Church can give is that of silence, suffering, patience, and unfailing love, and this is a voice that not even death can silence.
The point is not that silence is always the right response to injustice, or that the Church should accept repression as legitimate. Paul VI is describing a situation in which rulers have made genuine dialogue impossible. In such conditions, the Church’s fidelity may be expressed through refusing to betray the faith, enduring suffering without hatred, and continuing to love those who persecute her. This witness is not passivity: it makes visible the human cost of oppression and testifies that political power cannot command the conscience or extinguish Christian hope.
The examples from Kazakhstan and Hungary also show why martyrdom and ordinary perseverance matter pastorally. John Paul II recalled believers who suffered and died under Communist rule, and invoked the ancient Christian insight that the blood of martyrs becomes the seed of Christians. He linked their witness to the renewal of local communities and to the continuing task of evangelization. In Hungary, he likewise emphasized the role of faithful priests and laypeople—and especially believing families—in keeping the faith alive amid hostility and social marginalization.
Repression can also divide the Church internally. Pressure, fear, restricted communication, and uncertainty about leadership can make people vulnerable to rivalry or to claims of religious authority detached from the Church’s mission. John Paul II told the bishops of Nicaragua that, amid intimidation and obstacles to pastoral work, the Catholic community needed deep union with its pastors. He stressed that evangelization is not an individual undertaking: those who teach the faith or administer the sacraments do so in communion with the Church’s mission, not merely by personal initiative.
This emphasis does not mean that every prudential decision by church leaders is beyond criticism, nor do the cited texts settle every question about how a local Church should respond to a regime. They do establish a central pastoral principle: repression should not be allowed to turn the Church into disconnected individuals or rival factions. Communion gives the community a shared basis for worship, teaching, pastoral care, and discernment, especially when normal structures are under attack.
The Church’s mission under authoritarian rule is not reducible to protecting its own institutions. In a study of the Church in Poland, J. Chrapek describes pastoral work that helped people overcome fear, recover a sense of responsibility for their common life, and take concrete social and cultural initiatives. He also cautions against assuming that every local Church had the same influence: the relationship among state, society, and Church varied, and the Church’s public standing differed from country to country.
That qualification matters. The Church can become a moral voice for people denied the ability to speak, but this role depends on local history and the trust a community has earned; it cannot simply be presumed. Nor should pastoral work be confused with the pursuit of political power. The cited account presents social and cultural activity as helping people recover agency and responsibility, not as a substitute for the Church’s religious mission.
The Church also has grounds to challenge the claim that fidelity to the faith makes Catholics enemies of their country. Pius XII taught that Catholics can respect civil authority and obey public laws, provided they are not commanded to violate natural, divine, or ecclesiastical law. This is a distinction between legitimate civic obedience and coerced wrongdoing: Christians need not reject their country or civil authority as such, but neither may the state demand that they violate conscience or renounce the rights of the Church.
Pastoral care under repression includes support beyond the persecuted community itself. John Paul II urged the wider Church to provide moral, spiritual, and material assistance, including personnel, to local Churches rebuilding after Communist rule. He also appealed to governments to adopt policies guaranteeing religious freedom for all citizens. These two appeals belong together: the Church accompanies suffering believers, and it publicly calls for conditions in which all people—not Catholics alone—can practice their faith.
The pastoral response, then, is neither accommodation at any cost nor confrontation for its own sake. The sources support a pattern of fidelity: preserve communion; sustain the faithful through worship, formation, and family life wherever possible; bear witness without hatred when public speech is forbidden; speak and act where opportunities remain; and call civil authorities to respect conscience and religious freedom. The precise balance between public protest, quiet persistence, and other forms of action will depend on local circumstances. The available sources do not prescribe one universal strategy for every authoritarian regime.
Authoritarian repression aims to silence the Church and weaken the bonds through which faith is handed on. The Church’s pastoral mission answers that pressure by remaining present: in faithful pastors and laypeople, in families that transmit belief, in communities that refuse division, and in a witness of patience and love that power cannot finally silence. Where possible, that mission also includes serving society and publicly defending religious freedom. Its governing purpose remains the Gospel and the care of people—not the preservation of influence for its own sake.