Catholic bishops in Spain are the latest church leaders to voice their support to Catholic clergy in Nicaragua.

The government of the Central-American country has been recently criticised by bishops across the world for its crackdown on the Catholic Church in the country. 

Earlier this month, the government decided to close six catholic radio stations arguing they didn't have the correct broadcasting permits. 

Since then, a bishop who opposed to the closure, Fr Rolando Lopez, has been under house arrest, without being able to leave his residence to officiate services nor buy food.

Bishop Rolando has been streaming his services via Facebook since. 

This week, a priest from another diocese was also arrested after officiating Mass. 

Officials have not released the reason for his arrest. 

Fr Oscar Danilo Lopez became the third priest to be arrested and the ninth cleric to be in police custody - this included Fr Roland and five other priests who have been under house arrest since 4th August 2022. 

Spain's primatial archdiocese of Toledo, said on Twitter: "We entrust the entire Diocese of Matagalpa (to God) in these critical moments and ask the Lord for the gift of fortitude for their pastors and lay faithful."

The coadjutor archbishop of Granada, Spain, Fr José María Gil Tamayo, expressed his "solidarity for the Church in Nicaragua, its freedom under siege by the dictatorship that governs the country." 

Last week, Msgr. Juan Antonio Cruz Serrano, the Holy See's Permanent Observer in America said: "the Holy See cannot fail to express its concern in this regard, while assuring those who are committed to dialogue as an indispensable instrument of democracy and guarantor of a more humane and fraternal civilization that it always wishes to collaborate with."