Religious Persecution Underpins Anti-American Regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua

W hen Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Pope Leo in Rome in early May, he came with a short list of discussion topics. Cuba was on it, as was the persecution of Christians in Havana and around the world. Both the United States and the Vatican share, as Rubio put it, a “concern about the destruction of religious liberty.”

Few places exemplify this destruction better than Cuba and Nicaragua. Havana’s communist regime and Managua’s Murillo-Ortega dictatorship operate the most egregious state-run campaigns against Christianity in the Americas. In these majority-Christian countries with deep Catholic roots, churches and other faith-based institutions face persecution because their very existence challenges the underpinnings of the regimes.

But as the church suffers under anti-Catholic authoritarianism in Cuba and Nicaragua, it still has an institutional and social role to play. Specifically, the Catholic Church can provide a conduit to deliver much-needed support to people in both countries. Last week, the United States publicly offered to provide $100 million in humanitarian aid for the Cuban people — but only if the aid was distributed through the Catholic Church, rather than the regime.

As the Trump administration escalates pressure on Havana and Managua because of their deep hostility to the United States, stemming the tide of Christian persecution should be a top priority in America’s efforts to support the Cuban and Nicaraguan people.

The roots of this persecution date to the Cuban Revolution. After Fidel Castro consolidated power, he began a prolonged campaign of control, surveillance, and repression against Christian institutions. In 1961, the regime nationalized roughly 350 Catholic schools, two Catholic universities, and 81 Catholic charitable organizations. It also expelled hundreds of priests and thousands of consecrated religious persons.

Today, the Communist Party of Cuba’s Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), run for more than 30 years by Caridad Diego Bello, exercises draconian control over Cuban religious life. Basic church activities, from repairing a roof to requesting to hold a procession or ordain a deacon, go through ORA. The regime has near-total impunity in persecuting religious groups and figures that catch their ire: Article 143 of Cuba’s 2022 Penal Code imposes up to ten years imprisonment for religious groups believed to be receiving foreign funds, while other statutes criminalize “public disorder,” “contempt,” and “resistance.”

And persecute they have. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Havana commits more than 600 documented violations of religious freedom each year. Pastor Alain Toledano watched bulldozers raze his Emmanuel Church in 2020 and was driven into exile two years later after facing a regime ultimatum to leave or face prison. Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo of Monte de Sion Independent Church was beaten in Boniato Prison and held for three and a half years. He was released in 2025, as part of a Vatican-brokered deal that freed 553 prisoners in exchange for Cuba’s short-lived removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list by the Biden administration.

Cuba’s Sandinista allies in Nicaragua seem to view the island’s system of persecution as a model. After the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) first took power in 1979 with the help of Cuban intelligence, the new regime, led by Daniel Ortega, persecuted Catholic Church leaders who spoke out against human rights abuses. After losing the 1990 presidential election — the first free vote the Sandinistas allowed — Ortega and the FSLN returned to power in 2007 with short-lived promises to improve relations with the Catholic Church.

In 2018, Ortega and Rosario Murillo, his wife and vice president, launched one of the most aggressive state campaigns against organized Christianity in modern Latin American history after Catholic churches offered protesters sanctuary during massive demonstrations in Managua. As of February 2026, Nicaragua has carried out 1,070 persecutory acts against the Catholic Church. The regime has exiled 309 clergy and religious and prohibited 27,286 religious processions. The regime has also dissolved 80 percent of Nicaragua’s NGOs, many of them religiously affiliated, and used mass denaturalization to render church leaders and adherents stateless.

Holding regime officials accountable and supporting the Cuban and Nicaraguan people would benefit the U.S. beyond merely improving global conditions of religious freedom. Both Cuba and Nicaragua provide America’s greatest adversaries with forward operating bases in the Western Hemisphere. From Chinese intelligence facilities outside Havana to a new military cooperation agreement between Managua and Moscow, these regimes directly threaten U.S. national security.

It’s a situation that the Trump administration can help to improve. It should start by redesignating Cuba and Nicaragua as Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act. Building on recent human rights sanctions on Murillo-Ortega regime officials, the administration should designate Caridad Diego Bello as a “Specially Designated National” under the Global Magnitsky Act and additional Ortega-Murillo regime officials in the National Police and Ministry of Interior under Executive Order 13851, Trump’s first term Nicaragua sanctions package.

Additionally, Congress should continue to fund programs that support the Cuban and Nicaraguan people. The 2026 appropriations package included $25 million to promote democracy and strengthen civil society in Cuba and $15 million for democracy and religious freedom programs in Nicaragua. The Trump administration should deploy these resources immediately and support continued funding in the next budget.

Some of the world’s worst persecutors of Christians are in America’s own backyard. As Washington confronts these regimes and supports the Cuban and Nicaraguan people, religious freedom should remain a priority.

Connor Pfeiffer is senior director of government relations at FDD Action and a former congressional staffer who worked on Western Hemisphere policy in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Samuel Ben-Ur is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.