A bishop disappeared in Nicaragua: the Church at prayer for her shepherd in chains

In Nicaragua, a bishop, Monsignor Abelardo Mata, has been missing since the end of June. Detained by the authorities, he has not reappeared, and no official information is given about his fate, his place of detention, or his condition. He had publicly prayed for the persecuted Church. Even the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, among others, has demanded that the regime disclose at last what has become of him.

The Church has long known the face of the tyranny that turns upon her shepherds. In the earliest days already, « Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him. » And the Lord laid a fearful prohibition upon those who lay hands on His own : « Touch ye not my anointed: and do no evil to my prophets. » To seize a bishop, to make him vanish, to deprive a people of their father in the faith : this is an injustice that constant doctrine ranks among the gravest, for it strikes at once the man, the innocent, and the liberty that the Church holds from God alone.

Measured against this rule, the news calls us to name the fact plainly and to pray without ceasing. We do not judge souls ; we state the act : to make a shepherd disappear because he prayed for the suffering Church is an abuse of the sword, which is entrusted to authority only to protect, not to oppress. May this afflicted country recover the liberty of its churches ; may the bishop be restored to his flock. And if the silence of the powerful continues, let her not fall silent, the prayer of the Church : for it was she who once opened the doors of Peter's prison, and it is she still who remains the weapon of the defenceless.

Sources. Acts of the Apostles, XII, 5 ; Psalm CIV, 15, according to the Vulgate ; Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment, concerning the injustice done to one's neighbour.