The ruling Sandinista regime expelled the president of the Nicaraguan bishops’ conference and further destroyed the country’s Catholic leadership as the clergy was forced into exile.

Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera of Jinotega was forced to leave Nicaragua after accusing a local Sandinista mayor of disturbing the celebration of Mass by playing loud music in front of the cathedral, according to Nicaraguan media.

According to independent news source Confidencial, the bishop was to board a flight from the country’s capital to Guatemala City on November 12. His whereabouts are unknown, but Confidencial reports that he has been accepted by the Order of Priests to which he belongs.

“We ask our Lord for forgiveness, both for our own mistakes and for those who do not respect worship and truth,” Herrera said during the November 10 Mass, “because this is a disrespect committed by the mayor and municipal officials. … Go tell them because they know the time of the service.”

The service was posted on the diocese’s Facebook page, but the page was later inaccessible. Local governments in Nicaragua routinely surveil priests during mass and hold raucous events nearby, such as boxing matches in front of the Cathedral in León earlier this year.

Herrera, who has served as president of the Nicaragua bishops’ conference since 2021, became the third bishop expelled from Nicaragua in 2024. Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, who is serving a 26-year prison sentence, and Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna, were detained in December 2023 after expressing support for Bishop Álvarez, and were sent to the Vatican in 2023. In January, Nicaragua and the Vatican reached an agreement on the release of 19 clergy.

The expulsion of the clergy left four dioceses without bishops. Only 22 priests remain in the Diocese of Matagalpa, which had 70 priests before the regime attacked the church and Álvarez, according to Martha Patricia Molina, an exiled Nicaraguan lawyer who has been tracking church persecution in the Central American country.

The regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, has targeted the Catholic Church while concentrating power and eliminating any space for dissenting voices.

Speaking to OSV News, Molina said the bishop’s expulsion came as priests in Nicaragua reported being banned from entering hospitals to perform the ritual of plundering the sick.

“The pressure hasn’t changed,” Molina told OSV News. “They want to destroy Catholicism from the country and make it atheist. “They want to have complete control over the Catholic Church.”