“Defending the wounded, the imprisoned, protecting them, supporting their families became ‘terrorism’ for the government, so we started getting persecuted,” said Father Rafael Bermúdez, an exiled Nicaraguan priest.

Daniel Ortega, a leader of the Marxist Sandinistas who overthrew the authoritarian regime of Gen. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled Nicaragua from the 1979 Sandinista takeover until his loss in the 1990 presidential election. He returned to power in 2007, and his regime has intensified its persecution of the Church.