SENECA, Kansas (AP) — Authorities say a 66-year-old Oklahoma man has been detained in connection with the fatal shooting of a Catholic priest at a church rectory in northeast Kansas.

The Nemaha County Sheriff's Office said in a post on Facebook that 66-year-old Gary Hermesch of Tulsa is being held in the Nemaha County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Authorities called to the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on Thursday afternoon found Arul Carasala suffering from gunshot wounds outside the rectory. The 57-year-old priest was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died.

Authorities have not released a possible motive for the shooting or said whether the suspect and the priest knew each other.

The priest's death left people in shock in Seneca, a city of about 2,100 where Carasala had been the pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church since 2011, according to his profile on the parish website.

He was ordained as a priest in 1994 in his native India and had served in Kansas since 2004. He became a U.S. citizen in 2011.

Seneca is about 60 miles north of Topeka, and about 300 miles north of Tulsa.