The Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua has eliminated and confiscated a retirement fund for aging Catholic priests, which it had previously frozen a year ago, in yet another move to undermine the Catholic Church in the Central American country.

According to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, the Insurance Fund for Priests Association is one of the 1,500 nongovernmental organizations whose legal status was canceled by the dictatorship on Aug. 19. The legal personhood of this association, the newspaper reported, had been approved by the National Assembly in 2005.

According to a source quoted by La Prensa, with this measure Catholic priests will no longer have the benefits of the insurance fund they paid into annually.

“In my case, I paid $300 annually for many years and since last year I have not paid due to the account being frozen, but the theft is already in effect, which in the end was stolen from the parishioners, who generously help us,” the source said.

What is the Priests’ Insurance Fund in Nicaragua?

In July 2023, lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” — which in its fifth installment this August cites 870 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic Church since 2018 — reported that the regime had frozen the money in the retirement fund.

“The national priestly insurance fund is an institution that was created more than 20 years ago by the CEN [Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference] with the idea of ​​a retirement fund for priests,” Molina explained.

“It’s not really insurance, because it doesn’t cover health issues or other social security issues. It’s designed as a retirement fund,” Molina said.

The fund receives $150 a year from active priests, parishes, and ecclesiastical institutions in addition to what is collected in the Ash Wednesday collection at the beginning of Lent. 

From this fund, a pension of $300 is allocated for priests 75 years of age or older and $150 for priests ages 65–74.