Source: www.csw.org.uk
Date: August 19, 2023
There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. (Proverbs 23:18)
God has promised us a certain future with him – one where all injustice and pain will be gone forever. Yet even while we wait for this day to come, we have the Holy Spirit to be with us always.
Pray this encouragement over Bishop Rolando Álvarez Lagos today. He is still imprisoned in Nicaragua, facing a future which must seem insurmountable: a 26-year prison sentence. But nothing is insurmountable to God.
Prison or exile
Bishop Álvarez Lagos was handed this severe sentence in February and stripped of his citizenship, after he refused to be forced into exile alongside 222 other political prisoners.
The charges against him are completely unfounded. Bishop Álvarez Lagos is being punished because he is a vocal critic of the injustices committed under President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo.
Last month, Bishop Álvarez Lagos again refused to leave his homeland in exchange for his freedom. The government had negotiated an agreement with Vatican representatives to release him from prison if the bishop would agree to leave the country immediately and go to Rome – but a choice of prison or exile is no choice at all.
Please pray:
- That Bishop Álvarez Lagos would be released unconditionally, with his citizenship and civil rights restored.
- For the release of all other political prisoners, including five Roman Catholic priests: Father Manuel Salvador García Rodríguez; Father José Leonardo Urbina; Father Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides; Father Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez; and Father Jaime Iván Montesinos.
- That the Nicaraguan government will cease its harassment of all independent civil society groups, including religious groups and their leaders, and will unfreeze the bank accounts of all religious groups.
- That God would meet the needs of all of those who have been forced to leave the country and go into exile.