Abuse Cases Exit Shadows in Mexico, by Jo Tuckman, Boston Globe, October 22, 2006

Abuse Cases Exit Shadows in Mexico

By Jo Tuckman
Boston Globe
October 22, 2006

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/10/22/abuse_cases_exit_shadows_in_mexico/

Mexico City - The last time Joaquín Aguilar Méndez went into a confessional, he said, he told the clergyman how he was depressed by the lack of support given him after he publicly alleged that he was raped by a priest while an altar boy.

"He told me it was all my fault for not keeping the matter private," Aguilar Méndez recalled recently. "And I said to myself, right, that's it. I'm still a Catholic, but I've had enough of the clergy, forever."

Now the 25-year-old vows to dedicate the rest of his life to exposing the sexual abuse he said pervades the Mexican church under the protection of the highest ecclesiastical authorities.

Father Nicolas Aguilar officiated at the church in San Vicente Ferrer in 1997. He is accused of abusing boys in the village.
Photo by Jo Tuckman

The church authorities categorically deny such allegations. "Not many people report being abused by priests in Mexico because it doesn't happen that often," said Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman of the archdiocese of Mexico City.

But Aguilar Méndez and his activism are having unprecedented success in bringing the issue out of the shadows in Mexico, where it remained even while the scandals raged in the United States.

Backed by the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, he filed a civil suit last month in Los Angeles that some specialists believe could turn out to be a watershed.

"They don't realize the damage they are doing by trying to protect the image of the institution," Aguilar Méndez said of church leaders.

Roberto Blancarte, director of the Center for Studies in Sociology at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico, says the church's immunity is eroding.

"In Mexico, there has long been the perception that the clergy has certain privileges, that it will always get away with things," he said. "What is happening is that this [perception] is beginning to break down."

Aguilar Méndez's suit alleges that Father Nicolás Aguilar (no relation) was free to rape him because the priest was shielded from prosecution for earlier crimes by Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Cardinal Norberto Rivera, Mexico's most prominent churchman.

Rivera allegedly arranged for Aguilar to be transferred from Puebla state to California in 1987 to save him from having to face accusations. Rivera was a bishop in Puebla at the time.

In less than a year, the priest apparently fled back to Mexico before the California authorities could serve warrants for 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child, according to Janice Maurizi, a director of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Maurizi said Mexican authorities then took up the charges against Aguilar, under an agreement that allows for prosecution of Mexicans in their native country in some cases. She said the case dragged through the courts before being dismissed in 1995 on what she believes were insufficient grounds.Continued...

Aguilar Méndez believes Aguilar was then sent to a retreat during that period before being assigned to the church in Mexico City, where he says the rape took place in 1994.

Mahony and Rivera have denied the charges.

Father Valdemar, the archdiocese's spokesman, said last week that the cardinal is likely to file a counter-case alleging defamation. He called the charges of conspiracy to cover up abuse "absurd" and the work of "enemies of the church."

The activists believe the cardinal is exerting influence within the Mexican government to shut them up. Mexico's immigration agency this month announced a five-year entry ban on two US lawyers involved in the Los Angeles case, as well as on the US director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests.

The agency said they violated the terms of the tourist visas they used to enter Mexico last month by giving a news conference in Mexico City on the lawsuit while they were in the country.

The allegations against Rivera are the most significant against a church figure in Mexico since the case involving Marcel Maciel, the aging Mexican founder of the influential order The Legion of Christ. Based on the testimony of eight elderly men who allege they were abused a half-century ago or more, that case culminated in May when the Vatican ordered Maciel to retire to a life of "prayer and penitence." His accusers declared themselves frustrated at the lack of a more explicit declaration of guilt.

Rivera, who has declared his innocence and insisted he always acted to stamp out suspected sexual misconduct, has called on Aguilar to turn himself in to police. The priest is reportedly living in Puebla, where local police officials say he occasionally has been spotted selling religious music outside churches.

Hugo Arsola, the head of the state's investigative police, said he is not aware of any active arrest warrants out on Aguilar, but has ordered his detectives to locate him anyway.

"This is not something we would usually do," Arsola said. "But there is a lot of pressure from the press and from society."

Blancarte predicted the door is now open for a greater number of abuse allegations.

"My impression is that, little by little, we are going to see more and more people denouncing abuse, and maybe we could even see, in the medium term, a kind of avalanche."

This view is born out in the Puebla state village of San Vicente Ferrer, where some residents remember Aguilar for allegations that he raped and molested several local boys in 1997.

"We went to the bishop, but he told us to forgive the priest because he was ill," recalled Delfina Medino, mother of one of the alleged victims.

Four boys, including Medino's son, pressed charges. Medino said the case fizzled out, although she holds out a vague hope that it could be revived on the back of the Los Angeles suit.

Aguilar Méndez said the biggest challenge facing victims in Mexico is fear of the church.

"I get calls all the time now from victims," he said. "But they say they will only denounce the abuse once they see what happens to me."