Bishop Rolando Álvarez gives a news conference in 2018. Álvarez has remained in prison for more than a year after being convicted of conspiracy and receiving a 26-year prison sentence.

Nicaraguan police on Friday detained a bishop and seven other priests and seminarians, after a 16-day standoff, in an escalation of tensions between the country’s government and the Catholic Church.

Nicaragua's government released 19 clergy members who were incarcerated last year under the current regime's escalated crackdown on religious leaders, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez refused to board a plane for the U.S. with 222 other political prisoners. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his citizenship.

The Nicaraguan government said Sunday it released Bishop Rolando Alvarez and 18 clergy members from jail and handed them over to Vatican authorities.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez Lagos is once again in the news after Pope Francis appointed him to participate in the second session of the Synod on Synodality, which got underway this week at the Vatican.

The Vatican says Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez and 18 Catholic clergy members from the Latin American country have arrived in Rome and are guests of the Holy See. Skip to main content.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, a frequent critic of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, prays at a Catholic church in Managua May 20, 2022.

Pope Francis has called on politicians in Nicaragua to "open their hearts" over the “concerning” jailing of Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a prominent critic of the increasing authoritarianism of ...

Nicaraguan police on Friday detained a bishop and seven other priests and seminarians, after a 16-day standoff, in an escalation of tensions between the country’s government and the Catholic Church.