Nicaraguan regime releases video of 80-year-old bishop arrested at hospital

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, August 18, 2026

The Nicaraguan dictatorship allowed a regime-controlled television station to release a video of an 80-year-old bishop arrested by police at a hospital after he mentioned the country’s persecution of church leaders in a homily. 

Canal 6 released a video interview last week with Bishop Abelardo Mata, bishop emeritus of Estelí, who was taken into custody by police on June 29. The interview shows Adolfo Pastrán, a lawmaker and journalist aligned with the regime. 

Pastrán and Mata discussed various topics during the interview, including the bishop’s plants and crops, as the pair walked around the estate in Tisma, Masaya district. The estate is where the Nicaraguan dictatorship claims that the bishop has been since July 4, following his arrest in June. 

When asked by Pastrán if he is being taken care of, the bishop replied, “Yes, that’s not an issue.” Pastrán asked whether Mata had received any visitors, and the bishop said his brother and niece had visited. 

Regarding his current lifestyle, the bishop claimed that he enjoys “silence, study, and prayer. I am in my element, leading a monastic life; that is what I am doing — prayer and intellectual work.”

#Nicaragua Regimen da prueba de vida de Monseñor Mata, diputado sandinista lo visita pic.twitter.com/bybiz7TEyn

— 100% NOTICIAS (@100noticiastv) August 12, 2026

Father Edwing Román, vicar of St. Agatha Parish in Miami, criticized the interview, describing Pastrán as a “pro-government propagandist” when speaking with ACI Prensa on Aug. 14. Román said that Pastrán failed to mention “anything about the bishop being intercepted by police as he left a clinic in Estelí.”

“They kept him under restrictions and incommunicado for weeks in addition to trying to tarnish his reputation for integrity by questioning him about his property,” he continued.

Román also noted that Bishop Mata has always been a “critical voice,” describing him as someone who is “deeply attuned to the suffering of the Nicaraguan people.” He added that Mata’s confinement at his home is part of “the pattern of harassment the Church in Nicaragua is facing.”

According to the priest, the video interview “appears in response to pressure from Nicaraguans and, above all, the United States; yet it neither shows nor mentions the police patrols stationed at the property, where the bishop is not free to leave.”

The interview is the bishop’s first appearance since the police took him into custody while he was at the hospital for a routine checkup on his pacemaker. Prior to his arrest, the bishop is said to have called for prayers for the persecuted Church in Nicaragua. 

After Mata was taken into custody at the hospital, the bishop was brought to a regime prison and held there for several hours, according to reports. 

On July 4, the Nicaraguan regime claimed in a statement that Mata had been “returned to his home, where he remains in perfect condition.” 

“Mr. Abelardo Mata has given statements about various episodes that violate National Laws, which the Nicaraguan people have known about at different times,” the statement continues. “Upon returning to his place of residence, Bishop Mata acknowledged that he was treated at all times with the respect and consideration that characterizes the investigative bodies of our Nicaragua.”

Bishop Mata’s detainment has sparked an international outcry, with the Trump administration demanding his “immediate and unconditional release” last month, according to a statement by Riley M. Barnes, the assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the U.S. Department of State.

Barnes said that Mata is 80 years old with chronic health concerns, saying he "poses no threat" but is "subjected to house arrest simply for praying publicly for forcibly exiled Bishop Alvarez.” 

Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the regime’s treatment of the Catholic Church and the Nicaraguan people, was arrested in 2022 and later sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison. He was eventually released in 2024 and exiled to the Vatican. 

Nicaragua is ranked No. 32 on Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christian persecution is most extreme. According to the nonprofit persecution watchdog group, Christians are seen as "destabilizing agents" in the country and increasingly silenced under the dictatorial rule of Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.