Another Nicaraguan bishop remains missing after being apprehended by police.

Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata was detained by police June 29, one day after celebrating a Mass in the city of Estelí, during which he requested prayers for the country’s persecuted Catholic Church, according to independent Nicaraguan news outlet Confidencial.

The country’s interior ministry acknowledged Mata had been detained, but said in a July 4 statement that he “has returned to his home, where he remains in perfect condition.” The statement continued, “Mr. Abelardo Mata has given statements regarding various episodes of violation of National Laws, which the Nicaraguan people have known about at different times.”

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Confidencial and Catholic observers, however, said Mata’s whereabouts remain unknown.

“Until the dictatorship does not present the emeritus bishop Juan Abelardo Mata safe and sound at his home, any statement they issue is a lie,” Martha Patricia Molina, an exiled lawyer who tracks Nicaraguan Church repression, said in a July 4 X post. “The bishop IS NOT AT HIS HOME. The priests who are informed about the case have confirmed this to me.”

Molina told OSV News July 6 that no one close to Mata has seen him, despite the interior ministry’s claims.

She told Confidencial that Fr. Francisco Morales, pastor of the parish where Mata celebrated Mass prior to his detention, was also detained. His whereabouts also remain unknown. Molina said Deacon Wilfred Arauz Rodríguez was likewise taken into custody, but had been released.

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Mata’s disappearance has drawn a rebuke from the United States for the ongoing “attacks on religious freedom” in the increasingly authoritarian country.

The Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the U.S. Department of State said in a July 4 post on X, “We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Nicaraguan Bishop Abelardo Mata who has been arbitrarily detained by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship. 80-year old Bishop Mata poses no threat to the regime and his health is fragile. We further condemn the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship’s continued cruel religious persecution and repression.”

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott added, “The regime must immediately provide proof that Msgr. Mata is alive, release him immediately and unconditionally, and END, once and for all, its persecution of the Nicaraguan people and its vicious attacks on religious freedom.”

He continued in a July 2 X post, “There is NO place for evil dictators in our hemisphere. The Ortega-Murillo regime will be held accountable for its systematic persecution of the Catholic Church and the Nicaraguan people.”

The detention of Mata offered a stark reminder of the repression of Nicaragua’s Catholic Church under the Sandinista regime of Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo. The repression has forced priests to censor their homilies, parishes to keep processions to church property and clergy to flee the country. Molina has counted more than 300 priests, religious and seminarians in exile, along with four bishops.

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The Sandinista regime appears to have targeted dioceses with bishops in exile, including Estelí, where exiled Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa is apostolic administrator. More than half the priests in the dioceses of Estelí and Matagalpa have left the country or been denied reentry after traveling abroad, according to Molina, while the many of the clergy remaining are elderly.

Mata retired as leader of the Diocese of Estelí in 2021. Álvarez was exiled in 2023 after being convicted on conspiracy charges and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Catholic officials condemned the trial as a sham.