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	Mexican Cardinal: LA Court Has No Legal Right to Try Him By Ioan Grillo Associated Press, carried in Mercury News February 25, 2007 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16783143.htm Mexico City — A court in Los Angeles has no legal right to try Mexico's most prominent cardinal in connection with alleged child molesting and rape by a Mexican priest, the cardinal's lawyer said Sunday. Bernardo Fernandez, who represents Cardinal Norberto Rivera, said only a Mexican court has the authority to rule on the lawsuit. "The plaintiff is Mexican, complaining about alleged acts that happened in Mexico City in 1994, and the suit is against Mexicans," Fernandez told reporters after Rivera gave Sunday mass in the capital's metropolitan cathedral. "Mexican tribunals should oversee this case." Rivera refused to talk to the media. A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September alleges that Rivera conspired with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect priest Nicolas Aguilar. In the suit, Joaquin Aguilar Mendez says he was raped by Aguilar in Mexico City in 1994 after the priest had been charged with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child in California. Documents filed with the court say Aguilar Mendez, then 12, had gone to the priest's room at the rectory to use a restroom, when he was grabbed by the priest and sodomized. It said the priest told the boy to keep quiet or his siblings would suffer the same abuse. The lawsuit accuses Rivera and Mahony of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and sexual battery, and charges Aguilar with sexual battery. On Sunday, Fernandez denied that Rivera helped Aguilar return to Mexico after his nine month stint as a priest in Los Angeles in 1988. "Cardinal Norberto Rivera has never hidden Father Aguilar from justice," Fernandez said, adding that Aguilar did not work under Rivera's charge following his return to Mexico. He also reiterated claims that Rivera had written to Mahony warning him that Aguilar may have "homosexual tendencies" before he went to work in Los Angeles. Church officials in Los Angeles say Mahony never received that letter and have denounced the legal action, saying it is baseless. Aguilar worked as a parish priest in the Mexican state of Puebla in 1986 and 1987 when Rivera was bishop. The lawsuit alleges Rivera helped cover up the abuse of 50 boys there. In 1988, Aguilar transferred to Los Angeles where he worked for nine months leading to the charges against him. A Los Angeles court gave Mexico extradition orders for Aguilar in 1988 and 1993 but Aguilar continued to work as a priest in Mexico. Following the filing of the lawsuit his whereabouts have been unknown. The legal action is backed by the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. As many as 60 alleged victims from both Mexico and the U.S. have come forward with accusations against Aguilar, the suit says. Similar suits have cost U.S. Catholic dioceses an estimated $1.5 billion (euro1.15 billion), alarming church leaders worldwide.
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