The Ortega regime‘s ban on religious processions during Lent is only the latest action to effectively criminalize Catholicism in Nicaragua. Catholics in the U.S. must assist refugees and fight anti-religious authoritarianism.

On March 27, 40 men died in a fire in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez. The appalling loss of life has many more authors than the people likely to be punished for it.

Imprisoned Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez appeared unexpectedly on Nicaraguan television March 24, more than six weeks after refusing to be exiled from his country, opting instead to face his sentence of 26 years behind bars. 

The protest was organized by women’s advocates and the family, friends and neighbors of Ana Lizeth Hernández, a 33-year-old woman who died of a gunshot wound to the head in her home on March 19.

In Honduras, persistent drought can devastate crops and unexpected rains can flood fields and produce landslides. 

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua suspended diplomatic ties with the Vatican in what appears to be retaliation for Pope Francis’ likening his regime to “a communist dictatorship in 1917, or a Hitlerian one in 1935.”