Bishop Álvarez: ‘I always believed in my liberation and what sustained me was prayer’

“I am not exiled, I am liberated. I do not feel exiled, but liberated,” emphasized Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez during an exclusive interview with EWTN in February 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA Vatican City, Feb 7, 2025 / 12:20 pm (CNA). In an exclusive interview, persecuted Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez, bishop of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí, shared with EWTN News his experience one year after his release and arrival in Rome.The Nicaraguan bishop was detained for 17 months in his country, first under house arrest and then in prison, accused by the regime of Daniel Ortega of “conspiracy” and “treason,” among other crimes.   In an interview with EWTN Noticias correspondent Paola Arriaza, Álvarez spoke about his release in Nicaragua in January 2024, which he described as “a supernatural action of God,” his physical and mental recovery, his relationship with Pope Francis, and his participation in the Synod on Synodality.  With an unwavering faith and a message of hope, Álvarez reflected on his past in Nicaragua, his present in the Eternal City, and his continued commitment to the universal Church.Paola Arriaza: Bishop Rolando Álvarez, you arrived in Rome a year ago. How has your life been here and what tasks has Pope Francis entrusted to you?Bishop Rolando Álvarez: Well, I am very happy in Rome because when I was detained, I thought that at the time of liberation, after Nicaragua, the best city in which I could live is the eternal one. Precisely because I am close to Peter, and that renews my faith in such a way that I have had a year of recovery, certainly of my integral health, but in which I have also been getting the inner peace that I needed so much.On the day when you left, you left behind your country, the country where you spent your childhood. Tell us a bit about your childhood in Managua — I don’t know if your vocation to priesthood could be seen from then on. My childhood was normal. I grew up in the heart of a peasant, working-class, and very Catholic family, with a serious education in the faith, in such a way that my vocation was glimpsed from my childhood because I would pretend to be a priest. Of course I had my girlfriends, but I think that helped me to discern that my path was not marriage. In fact, when I reached a moment of maturity, I wanted to discern well my marriage process, but I did it in reverse, because being in Guatemala I began the path of vocational discernment in the Seminary of the Assumption and there, in that year, I realized that mine was the priesthood, that I was called to the priestly ministry.How was that moment when you realized that? Or was it just another process?  It was a process, yes, I always say that I am one of those who come from the street because I did not go through the minor seminary, but after a year, after the discernment process, I was admitted directly to the propaedeutic and then to philosophy, always in the Seminary of the Assumption in Guatemala, because that is where my process of ministerial formation began.  EWTN’s Paola Arriaza interviews Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, the Nicaraguan bishop of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí, in Feb. 5, 2025, in Rome. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNASpeaking of your priestly ordination, there is a particularity: The ordination was not in Rome. How did this happen? Well, after having done my propaedeutic and philosophy in Guatemala, back in the ’90s, I was transferred to Nicaragua to study at the Interdiocesan Seminary of Our Lady of Fátima, and when I was in my second year of theology, Archbishop-Cardinal [Miguel] Obando called me to tell me that he was sending me to study philosophy in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University. So I finished my philosophical specialization and theological formation at the Lateran, being in Rome 30 years ago, and at that time the rector of the John Paul II International Seminary, where I lived, proposed that Pope John Paul II ordain me to the priesthood. But with all the love I have for the saint and to whom I am really very devoted, I chose to be ordained by my bishop in my Archdiocese of Managua, which is the diocese of origin, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, with my people, with my people and among my own.Don’t you think that shows a great affection for your people, your country?  Well, I think I have always had it. I remember an interesting anecdote, and it is that I did not take with me the beautiful vestments that are here in Rome, but I gave them to a Nicaraguan farmer who makes them — he is a professional technician of this — and my vestments are very simple, anti-liturgically I think, because in this the liturgists, listening to me, will criticize me, my sacred vessels were made of wood and I still keep them there. So yes, I have always had this attachment for the cultural, for what is ours, for what is Nicaraguan, for what I am and for the origin where I come from, that one should not forget i