Nicaragua’s seizure of the Jesuit-run Central American University in Managua on Aug. 16 was only the latest episode in the government’s five-year campaign to silence the Catholic Church.

Since 2018, Catholic priests and laity critical of the government have been harassed, exiled, imprisoned, tortured and murdered. The regime has shut down more than 700 nonprofits and nongovernmental agencies, including the Catholic charity Caritas and the Red Cross.

This year, the government prohibited more than 1,000 Catholic processions during Lent and Easter. Priests were barred from anointing the sick, conducting baptisms and celebrating Mass. Even saying the rosary is now considered a subversive act in Nicaragua.

Ortega’s attempt to extinguish Catholicism in Nicaragua merits world condemnation on a much larger, and louder, scale. As the president of a Catholic university, I am especially eager to rally university leaders in opposition to this persecution. But leaders from all walks of life should be condemning Ortega in the harshest terms. His regime should be isolated as an international pariah for trying to “disappear” Catholicism, freedom of worship and free speech.