Still on the Hook Mexico Citys Archbishop Deposed in a Los Angeles Case Involving an Alleged Clergy Rape Victim with Whom Cardinal Mahony Reached a Settlement, California Catholic Daily, August 10, 2007

Still on the Hook
Mexico City's Archbishop Deposed in a Los Angeles Case Involving an Alleged Clergy Rape Victim with Whom Cardinal Mahony Reached a Settlement

California Catholic Daily
August 10, 2007

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=717d84fc-276c-4a49-9d7b-01dfd523621c

The archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, was deposed August 8 in a Los Angeles lawsuit charging him with complicity in the alleged rape of a youth by a priest in Mexico.

The lawsuit, filed last September, claims that the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar raped the then-13-year old Joaquin Mendez in 1994 in Mexico City.

Why is Rivera the subject of a U.S. court case? Because, in 1987, when he was bishop of Tehuacan, Rivera sent Aguilar to Los Angeles. Having received a letter from Rivera, which said that the priest was suffering from "family problems and ill health," Cardinal Roger Mahony accepted him into the Los Angeles archdiocese, making him assistant pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in Los Angeles and then, two months later, transferring him to St. Agatha's, also in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles police department says that Aguilar is suspected of having molested 19 boys while serving in Los Angeles. According to the lawsuit, hearing of allegations of molestation against Aguilar, Monsignor Thomas Curry, then archdiocesan vicar general, informed the priest on Jan. 9, 1988 and relieved him of priestly duties. The same day, Aguilar fled to Tijuana. On Jan. 11, informed by the principal of Our Lady of Guadalupe school of the allegations against Aguilar, Los Angeles police contacted Curry, who said Aguilar had said he was going to return to Mexico "at the first of the week. 1-11," according to police reports.

The lawsuit claims Rivera conspired with Mahony to protect Aguilar. Rivera, however, says he sent two letters warning Mahony about the priest – one on Jan. 27, 1987, in which Rivera informed Mahony about the priest's family and health problems, and a March 23, 1987 letter that gave "a brief report on the priest's homosexual problems." Mahony says he received the first but not the second letter. (Jeff Anderson, Mendez's attorney, told the Los Angeles Mission last October that "homosexual problems" is "code for a history of sexual abuse.")

The Mexico City archdiocese's spokesman, the Rev. Hugo Valdemar Romero, told the Aug. 9, 2007 Los Angeles Times that Cardinal Rivera voluntarily gave his deposition. But Mexican Church officials say the case involving a rape that occurred in Mexico should not be handled by a U.S. court.

What of Mahony? Jeff Anderson told the Times that the Los Angeles cardinal settled with Mendez privately in July, separately from the $660 million archdiocesan settlement with alleged victims of clergy molestation. Mendez's settlement, however, said Anderson, was "modest" in comparison with the $1.3 million given on average to each victim in the larger settlement.