CIUDAD JUáREZ (MEXICO)
Los Ángeles Press [Ciudad de México, Mexico]
September 9, 2024
By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez
This week Los Ángeles Press goes back to Ciudad Juárez for an interview with a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez.
Leonardo was a student at the Seminary of the Roman Catholic diocese of Ciudad Juárez. There he was victim of a sexual attack from a deacon.
The diocese of Ciudad Juárez provides no information about who was the deacon and what is his current status within the Roman Catholic Church or if they filed a report with the civil authorities or with their leaders in Rome.
Seminaries are places where young Roman Catholic males seek to become priests. To do so, the aspiring priests must do studies of philosophy and theology, roughly six or seven years of training on top of the equivalent to High School in the U.S. or the so called Bachillerato in the Mexican system.
Sadly, besides the formal curriculum there is a “hidden curriculum”, forcing young males to learn how to find their place in a complex hierarchy aimed at discriminating while creating a sense of superiority among those who are able to complete their studies and then being ordained.
Today’s story goes back to a case Los Ángeles Press dealt with a year ago about abuse in the Seminary of the diocese of Ciudad Juárez, the largest city in the state of Chihuahua, which, together with its sister city of El Paso, Texas, shape the largest metropolitan area in the U.S.-Mexico border.
The story centers on Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez, a former seminarian at Ciudad Juárez, who is one the very few survivors of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in that diocese willing to offer a testimony of what happens in that district of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.
Unlike dioceses in Texas and the United States at large, forced to honesty by the more efficient system of justice they deal with, the dioceses in Chihuahua and Mexico at large, can pretend nothing happens, while chastising those who dare challenge them.
The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico does so by using many of the same tricks used by criminal organizations, shaping the crisis of the system of justice that the current Mexican government uses to promote what amounts to a coup against the Judiciary.
English Edition
El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, contrasting responses to sexual abuse
In previous installments on this series on clergy sexual abuse, Los Ángeles Press offered comparisons between the aforementioned diocese of Ciudad Juárez in Mexico and El Paso in the United States, linked before this paragraph.
English Edition
A new wave of bankruptcies shakes the Catholic Church in California
A two-part series compared the dioceses in the state of California, U.S., linked above this paragraph, and those in the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur, linked after this paragraph.
English Edition
Baja California and the clergy sexual abuse crisis
Today’s story allows to better understand the effects of sexual violence in religious settings, but it must be stressed, that the key issue is not the same sex aspect of the sexual violence, as it is not, more broadly, to understand the violence in Roman Catholic seminaries.
Issues, not gossip
The same sex aspect of this kind of violence is a pretext for gossip but becomes a distractor to actually address the real causes of clergy sexual abuse, as the many cases of female victims of this type of violence prove.
In this series Los Ángeles Press has documented enough cases of female victims, as to dispel any pretense that the issue is the so-called frociaggine, the same-sex attraction, to borrow the Italian word Pope Francis himself decided to make famous in what was an attempt at distracting from the root cause of the issue.
English Edition
What lies behind Pope Francis’s second use of a homophobic slur?
Last week we offered a detailed account of Paulo Araújo’s case, a young Brazilian priest charged with the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl, who got pregnant and who Araújo forced to have an abortion as to prevent any damage to his career.
English Edition
The crime of Father Araújo
It is impossible to provide here an ultimate explanation of clergy sexual abuse at large. For the moment, it must be enough to acknowledge that the very understanding of the role of the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church plays a key role in such crisis.
The idea of priests as touched by some form of “ontological change” rendering them especially different from the average human and even from the average faithful of that Church, sets them apart, turning what allegedly is a vocation, a calling, to service and self-sacrifice, into privilege and an institutional setting that favors abuse, sexual and otherwise.
What Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez talks about his experience in the Seminary of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is in no way special or unique. Similar stories exist from Alaska in the United States to the Chilean and Argentine Patagonia and on the other side of both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. What changes are the names of the places, the predators, and the victims, but the issues remain the same.
Back in 2023, Los Angeles Press ran a series dedicated to the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Mexican diocese of Ciudad Juárez. The series eventually turned into a book, available only in Spanish.
Arteleaks
‘Miedo y asco en Ciudad Juárez’, un libro sobre el abuso de sacerdotes
One of the installments of that series, was a testimony of one of the victims of that crisis there, a former seminarian at Ciudad Juárez, who left that school. First, a cleric already serving as deacon assaulted him while on assignment at a parish; then when news got out of the assault, the victim was revictimized by the leaders of the Seminary and the diocese.
After leaving the Seminary, Leonardo published his testimony at a Facebook profile. Although he authorized the use of his testimony for that series, he declined a request for an interview.
Victim while on assignment
Back on early-August 2024, Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez, the former seminarian, got in touch with the author of these lines and agreed to having a conversation about what happened at the Seminary of the diocese of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Must be stressed that he was the victim of a sexual attack while on assignment at a parish in his diocese. His superiors were unable to figure out better ways to deal with the issue, so a few weeks after the attack he dropped from the Seminary.
The conversation happened on August 14th, and I recorded it over Google Meet, what follows is an edited transcript of the conversation with Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez, survivor of clergy sexual abuse, former seminarian at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ciudad Juárez, and who is on track to become a medical doctor at the local university in Ciudad Juárez.
Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez (RSN): Thank you, Leonardo, for having this conversation with us. I want to make a couple of questions about your experience, but I would like to let you begin this exchange the way you want to do so.
Leonardo Escárcega Velázquez (LEV): Well, this attempt to get in touch with you was because for the longest time I have not had a chance to even read the articles printed about me.
At the time, I published my testimony as a catharsis, because for quite some time it was… Overwhelming.
It was a situation forcing me out of my parents’ house. I do not blame them. My parents had to live this process, so they were touched, they had to suffer too.
And, obviously, nobody is ready to live something like this. Once I am out of my parents’ house, I become increasingly dependent on alcohol. Always being functional. Obviously, I have to keep working, I have to keep attending college. But there was always a sense of pain, a sense of rancor, and those feelings will always come to the surface when I was the weakest.
There was a sense of disdain for me. It is hard to explain, but it would come alive again.
Then, little by little, when I was trying to reach to others, when I was trying to get my mind clear, I was able to contact a female psychologist, who was aware of the whole story. Step by step, she helped me overcome trauma.
In fact, now my relationship with my parents has improved, as my relationships with former colleagues, with whom, at some point I had lost any contact.
But yes, what is happening now is that many things are moving in me, feelings, so recently I gave myself the opportunity to go over the piece you published, almost one year ago, about the case.
And I can say, obviously, that other memories came back too, other issues. I would have been able to provide more details, but I am trying to avoid sadness, to get involved in that way of perceiving myself as sad or imprisoned, but yes, reading the piece brought the experience back to life.
I do not know if that is clear.
Great expectations
RSN: Yes, that is a problem. It is hard because, on top, one enters the seminary with way too many expectations.
All the things they tell you about the seminary is that you are aiming at the greatest, the most elevated, to best that can happen to a person. So, obviously, the breakage you went through is traumatic.
LEV: And to be honest, obviously once I was able to talk to my friends out of the religious context and trying to talk out of the pain, trying to be more objective. It is true, there are always signals, but they are always ignored.
Or one lets them go through. One imagines that it is not what one is thinking, or one is even unable to figure that out. Then, I remember that even before that, when I would be willing to say that I was doing well there, there were episodes where it was obvious that there was some sort of selection, of picking up.
Even us, at the seminary, at some point would call that in irony “the elite”, because there was a “select group” of seminarians who enjoyed a certain close relationship with the padres attending the most relevant activities of the diocese.
What is odd is that it was happening from the outset, on my first year there, when I was not relevant yet. I was getting the invites to those activities; they asked me to participate with the fathers attending those activities.
More specifically, in the religious service, everyone wanted to attend the more relevant services. Like Our Lady of Guadalupe’s, on December 12th, assist to the masses with the bishop, which are all done in a more “liturgical” form, with a procession in full display.
It is odd when they ask one to participate in those activities. One who had no time there and that, up to a certain extent, they led you to follow priests, who, in more than one way had already told you were there to refine your manners, to teach you.
The feature Leonardo is describing at this point is not exclusive of the Ciudad Juárez Seminary. Back in January of this year, a Vatican court issued the first ruling on clergy sexual abuse. The case happened at the Seminary Saint Pius X, located inside the Vatican walls.
As any other seminary its goal was to train future priests, but its students used to assist in the ceremonies presided at Rome by the Pope, Cardinals, bishops, and other figures of authority of the Roman Catholic Church there.
Corrupting minors
The abuse in Rome happened under Benedict XVI’s tenure as Pope and a key feature of it is that when Gabriele Martinelli, the priest charged as guilty in January of this year, was a student there he would choose the seminarians who would assist the many ceremonies presided in Rome by priests, bishops, cardinals, and the very Pope.
As a student in Saint Pius X Martinelli had some authority over what students would attend the ceremonies, and he used such authority to sexually abuse other seminarians there. One of such seminarians is the one who filed a report and who, eventually, more than ten years later, proved the attack.
Although he was declared guilty of “corrupting a minor” within the Seminary and while a seminarian, he remains a priest since, technically, the abuse he perpetrated happened before his ordination and the Roman Catholic Church seems to be unable to figure out how much damage that kind of punctilious formalism brings to itself.
Given the constraints of the labyrinthic legislation regulating the relations between Italian nationals and the Holy See, Martinelli only got a 30-months sentence, which is still unclear if will ever be served, since the larger issue, that of the role of Enrico Radice, a priest who used to be the rector of the Seminary when the abuse happened, from 2010 through 2012, is yet to be decided.
Radice is accused of being complicit in the abuse, and of not reporting the issue to his superiors. The trial is more complex because, even if the Seminary appears in in Rome, it is part of the diocese of Como, located more than 620 kilometers or 385 miles North of Rome, in the region of Lombardy.
The issue of using the proximity of figures of authority within the Roman Catholic Church or somehow associated with that institution is a frequent feature of clergy sexual abuse, as such proximity is seen as having access to the very source of power within that institution. As a consequence of this scandal, Pope Francis decided to move this seminary out of the Vatican.
Going back to the interview with Leonardo he explains “I was never a refined person, one seen as having good demeanor as far as manners are concerned and, precisely, one of those priests once tried to teach me about manners.
“So, now I am not against being, more ‘civilized’, but at the time, for me it was totally irrelevant, I was a 16- or 17-year-old, and I could not care less about those issues, and I was always at odds with that priest.”
A place in their world
RSN: It is a way to integrate you into the hierarchy, a way to give them a place above you, more relevant than yours, and to set you in what they saw as your place. It is a procedure seen in almost any other hierarchy: in sports, in the arts, anywhere. What is different is that they play around with this transcendent good that is salvation and the role that you can play in other people’s lives when you become a priest.
LEV: Yes. I was always able to spot that kind of elitism, of preference, of priests, not only towards the seminarians, but also towards their families, with the richest getting the most preference as compared to those who lacked those resources.
I am not saying all, but some of them did so.
So, one year went by. I was not in good terms with that priest, because I never absorbed the refinement he was trying to instill on me. And he gave me bad notes.
They do not reveal the actual notes to us, but I was able to notice the difference.
RSN: Of course.
LEV: Ironically, the next year, the priest who was my superior sent me to the place where the attack happened. But now, because I had to be more humble, less preppy. That was really contradictory.
First, they claimed I was not refined enough and then, unexpectedly, they sent me to a specific place because I was too preppy. That seemed to me contradictory.
RSN: It is Gaslighting 101. They create this setting in which you cannot tell who you really are, where are you supposed to fit within the hierarchy, as to allow them to put you in the place you are supposed to be.
LEV: And for sure, once you are there, you do not question the orders you receive. You do not question them. There are times when you feel guilty about your own behavior.
I felt guilty because I was never able to be as refined as one of them wanted; and then because they think you are not humble enough and it was so…
And it is not as if you are able to figure out some logic. You only blame yourself for doing something wrong.
RSN: That is what they are aiming for. It is a model orientated at eliciting that kind of response. That is the overall idea. That is the way they can bring you to meet their expectations. And there are some kids who are so desperate for affection, so desperate to find order in their lives, that will abide. So, when the priest says “Jump!”, they will answer “How high?”
Warnings
LEV: It was not my case. But, lately, after being at therapy, I have wanted, how can I put it?
Not to start over the friendship with all those persons, but to be able to forgive. Not because I am assuming that they need forgiveness or even that they are interested in getting it, but because it is something that would liberate me from the rancor that, up to a certain extent, I am still carrying over.
In fact, when I published that piece, I was aiming at warning other kids who were about to enter the Seminary. But yes, it is true, that aspect would be needed, although I did not do it at that time. Then, I was not even aiming at that.
Although it was my goal to send a warning, I was never willing to talk about this. And to turn on those lights, you know? It worried me that, first, they give you lots of attention, and then, all of the sudden, they no longer do it.
And then also what I went through when I became the target of harassment after what happened. There were specific situations, but very odd of people who had never even talked to me and, unexpectedly, were inviting me.
Once, one said: “I need you to come to my room at night, because I want to talk with you”. Why would he want to talk to me if he had never even talked to me?
I do not remember if I put all the details in my piece.
RSN: Yes, they are.
LEV: And there is also the issue that there were priests who were inviting me to spend the weekend with them.
The sad thing is that one of them was able to gain my parents’ trust, and since them were unaware of what was happening, they thought I was not accepting because I was just rebellious.
So, in a way, him also was harassing me.
It really was, let us say, my breakpoint, the point of no return for me. I was unable to trust anybody in the Seminary and I cannot say that all the people there were against me, acting out of bad faith, but it is extremely hard to figure out who was and who was not.
RSN: I do not know if you notice that I added to your piece some additional information about a study done in the United States about seminaries there. One of the findings of this study is what you are talking about, that many seminarians, some of whom are still there, find it hard to figure out who can they trust in their seminaries.
Catholic seminary culture
It is a study published in 2019 by the University of Notre Dame, authored by John Cavadini, a Roman Catholic priest and professor at that university. The study was published as Sexual Harassment and Catholic Seminary Culture. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, an institution associated to Georgetown University, developed the survey providing the evidence for the study.
The study is available in full here at the University of Notre Dame website here or here too.
LEV: Exactly. That is the case. Even there were some priests that I cannot say that they did anything to me, or that they were acting in bad faith or that they were mean, but there was always some kind of underlying relationship between all the priests. In a way, there was some level of appreciation. Of course there is going to be. It is an exceedingly small group.
RSN: Another former seminarian from Juárez sent to me some screenshots of WhatsApp groups in which some priests there talk about sexual issues. Main problem for me is that he never wanted to have this kind of talk with me. He sent me the screenshots, and I cannot validate them if he also, all of the sudden, decides not to answer my messages anymore. If all of that is true, I would need to have some confirmation with other sources.
But it is clear that they know each other, and they share and exchange lots of information about the students. That is clear.
A Seminary is a total institution in which you spend 24 hours per day. You are under constant surveillance or, at least, some kind of observation. Then, it is clear that there is going to be an exchange of information about each student.
LEV: Yes, they end up knowing about our habits, our vices, and if you want to say it so, our virtues. At the end, we are there 24 hours a day. And it is very odd when a priest is unaware of who is one talking about when one criticizes other person there or whether one raised the tone of voice at some activity. That is really odd.
RSN: Also, you have the confession. There you have another tool that allows them to know about many personal details of the students. Spare the talk about not sharing information coming from confession. That is why many of the priests keep falling for the “complicit absolution”. That is to say when they confess and absolve their victims to prevent their victims from telling any other priest what is happening.
LEV: I do not know if they do it among them, but we were taught always that it was such a sacred secret, which could come down to excommunication if one talked about the issues discussed during confession.
Most brutal crises
RSN: Other sins merit excommunication too and they still do them. That is the problem, that they do acknowledge how they are promoting one of the most brutal crises in the history of the Roman Catholic Church because of these attitudes.
LEV: Well, yes.
RSN: One question, you entered after the Pope Francis’s visit to Ciudad Juárez?
LEV: It was the same year, but after. The Pope was there in February. Yes, as far as I remember. He came here to Ciudad Juárez in February. Yes, and I entered in August of that year. The same year.
RSN: Ok. Now, was his visit a factor for your decision to enter the Seminary? Were you answering somehow a calling from the Pope when you decided to enter?
LEV: No, not so much, not for Pope Francis. That is something I was criticized for, but I never had the Popes as ideals. There is a chapel in the Seminary dedicated to John Paul II, but I never had that idea about the Popes.
When I entered, I had other reasons and actually when I entered, I had been in a two-year process through the vocational circles, retreats, and other activities, which are a way to bring you in.
RSN: In your piece you talk about your family being part of a movement…
LEV: My parents had meetings, they are members of a movement, but there was no recruiter from the Seminary there. However, when my case happened, there was plenty of gossip about it there. So, the families there knew about it.
RSN: Now, how many years were you at the seminary?
LEV: It was my senior year of High-School, the Introduction, and then one year and a half of Philosophy, I think. I cannot remember if I finish the second year of Philosophy, to be honest.
RSN: But you attended the same Seminary during those years. There is no distinction between lower and upper Seminary…
LEV: Yes, all grades are there: Upper High-School, the Introduction, Philosophy, and Theology.
RSN: So, there is no separation between upper and lower levels.
LEV: There is a distinction, but all the grades are in the same premises.
Distinction
RSN: Now some specific questions about your case. The rector at the Seminary when this happens, the one who mistreated you was Father Juan Manuel Orona, Am I right?
LEV: Yes, he was the rector at that time.
RSN: And was he dismissed because of your case?
LEV: I cannot tell you that. In fact, it all happened when I went from my last year of High-School to the so-called Introductory course. And then, when I left, he remained for a while there, and I have no idea of what happened, once I am out, but there was some sort of fuss at the time I publish my story.
RSN: Yes, because when I used your testimony for the previous piece is when this other former seminarian sent the WhatsApp screenshots, and he tells me Orona effectively left because of your cause. (If you read Spanish, the previous piece on Leonardo’s case appears below this paragraph).
Investigaciones
Entre la fe y el silencio del abuso: mi experiencia en el Seminario de Ciudad Juárez
LEV: Yes, I am unable to confirm that.
RSN: Yes, you were dealing with other issues at the time.
LEV: Yes.
RSN: Now, when you have this awful conversation with the bishop José Guadalupe Torres Campos, it is him who tells you “Do not tell your parents”, Am I right?
LEV: No, it was not like that, not literally. What he said was to never talk about this with any other person, and I was the one who asked about whether I could talk about this with my parents.
RSN: So, he tells you not to do it because you could hurt them. Now, the other thing is relevant here is your age. Were you a minor when this happened?
LEV: When I talked, I was 18 years old.
RSN: But the assault, how old you were when the deacon attacked you?
LEV: I was already 18 years old.
RSN: So, you were already eighteen.
LEV: Yes.
RSN: Ok, because had you been a minor, then there was the obligation to report to the Chihuahua state attorney’s office.
In any case, it was important for me to know how old you were at the time of the assault. The other thing I would like to know is if you are aware of what happened to the deacon who assaulted you.
Reduced to…
LEV: As far as I know, he was “reduced to the lay state”, all I know is that he was stripped from the orders as deacon.
RSN: Yes, that is how they call it.
LEV: That is what I know. I had no real interest in him. Other versions say that after that he went to Tabasco, but I cannot say that for sure.
RSN: It is a rumor, but with substance, because priests with issues in Ciudad Juárez end up down in the diocese of Tabasco, in Southern Mexico.
I have data about that from other sources. So, it would not be difficult that effectively the bishop of Tabasco, who it is so because of his time as priest in Ciudad Juárez and then as bishop of Nuevo Casas Grandes, had received the deacon waiting out to recycle the deacon and eventually ordain him.
Gerardo de Jesús Rojas López is the current Bishop of Tabasco. He was a priest from the diocese of Ciudad Juárez, despite the fact he was born in Teocaltiche, Jalisco, back in 1957. In 1983, bishop Miguel Talamás Camandari presided over his ordination as priest, so when John Paul II appointed Juan Sandoval Íñiguez as bishop coadjutor in Ciudad Juárez he was already there at the U.S.-Mexico border.
One year before his death, in 2004, John Paul II appointed Rojas López as bishop of the Nuevo Casas Grandes diocese in the same state of Chihuahua. That diocese also shares limits with the diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Rojas López spent six years at the border and then, in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI, sent him to Tabasco, the diocese that shares the same territory of the Mexican state of the same name in the Southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, as the map after this paragraph shows.
Since then, Rojas López has been named by the global NGO Bishop Accountability for having covered up and transferred to a hitherto unknown diocese the priest Carlos Francisco Alejo Oramas, who used to abuse underage women, as the story linked above details.
LEV: Yes, to be honest, I have little knowledge of the issue. I have been told rumors about several priests from Tabasco that are here, but I cannot confirm how they got here, so I cannot say anything about them.
Procedures
RSN: Another question. You first brought this issue to your spiritual director, with a prefect, or what was the procedure you followed on this issue?
LEV: The first time I talked about the issue was not with an authority at the Seminary. I talked about this with one of my peers.
RSN: But once you went public with this it was with any other priest, a professor from there, what you did then?
LEV: Not, the first time I spoke, once the bomb went off was with the rector and the bishop, when they call me in.
RSN: So, they talked to you first?
LEV: Yes. It was how I knew the issue was out and public.
RSN: So, you never filed a formal complaint.
LEV: No, never. Never. They called me in.
I remember I was at some prayer, probably the rosary. We were walking towards the chapel, and they called me in. They told me the rector was calling me. I had no idea of why they were calling me in. So, it was without delay that the rector asked this very out of place question about whether or not I have had a homosexual relationship with the deacon.
Then, after that, I told him all the story and that same night I spoke, then, with my spiritual director and I tell him everything that happened, just as it happened, and I tell him that it all happened because the rector called me in.
And, as a matter of fact I was unable to sleep that night. I locked myself in my room. I was absent from prayers, from breakfast, and classes.
Some of my mates tell the priests that I was sick because nobody knew about me that night. The next day it was because they went to pick me up to my room, because the bishop was already there and wanted to talk to me again.
The bishop spoke to me while the rector was there, and we went over the issue again. And I have to acknowledge, the bishop let me speak, he made no stupid questions. Yes, there were no stupid questions.
RSN: One more question, were they willing to offer you any help?
LEV: Yes, I got some, to be honest. They suggested me going to the in-house psychologists at the Seminary, who usually deal with the issues affecting the students there.
RSN: And you went with them…
LEV: Yes, one of them helped me. In fact, everyone there told me she was one of the best, there in the seminary. She is an excellent person and I really appreciate her.
God’s hands?
RSN: So, she really helped you.
LEV: She did. Main problem is that many of the issues I wanted to talk about she would frame them in a religious manner. It is true, I was living in a religious context, but I think that psychology as an objective science should not deal with religious aspects. That is who I am. Perhaps I am wrong. Could not know, but there were things I was telling her, and she would reply that I should leave those issues I was talking about in “God’s hands”.
RSN: The problem for many victims, especially those who are not clerics is that the bishops want to offer treatment paid by them but with psychologists loyal to the Church. That way they render the therapies as part of their obligation to repair the damages. But you are right when you criticize the way they mix things up. What they do is actually awful. They should let the victims choose the therapist they want to work with.
LEV: Well, in my case I had to pay out-of-pocket for half my therapies.
RSN: You had to pay for your therapies with the in-house psychologist?
LEV: Half of it. Yes.
RSN: But since they sent you to live where you were forced to deal with the deacon, it was their duty to deal with the consequences of their orders. It was their call to send you there. You should have not paid for those therapies. It is good you provide this detail because it paints their dismissive attitude toward the victims.
In the Mexican diocese of Atlacomulco, Los Ángeles Press has provided a detailed account of how the bishop there denies the possibility of offering the victims of clergy sexual abuse a chance to choose their own therapist. If you read Spanish, you can go over the story linked above to get more details.
A possible reason to try for force the victims of clergy sexual abuse to attend therapies with professionals of their own choosing is to keep prices down, but also there is the chance of seeking therapists to play the “leave it in God’s hands” card, as a way to diminish the role of the institution in these cases.
LEV: Yes, but it was half of the price of each session. At the time it was 200 pesos out-of-pocket for me, and the other 200 pesos (approximately 20 USD in total).
RSN: Were you aware of any other case while you were a student there?
LEV: Before my case, I was aware of another kid. I thought about talking about him, but I have never had his consent to do so. I only acknowledge that I was aware of other similar situations there in the Seminary.
It really happens
My own case made me realize that it was true, it really happens. I knew the gossiping about that other case. In fact, I tried to avoid involving that other person. But it was said that he was a minor. He is actually younger than I am.
There was this father looking for him at the Seminary, taking him out to have food with him. He would take him to his parish. He would buy stuff for him.
RSN: He was his toy…
LEV: Basically. And, allegedly, once they found him a tablet with very inappropriate messages with the priest who took him out of the Seminary. I do not know up to where they went, because the person who had the evidence of this at some point was expelled from the Seminary and never actually wanted to share it.
But a third person noticed all this and took screenshots, pictures, the whole ten yards. And he also was told to keep quiet. And they expelled this kid, the one going out with the priest, the other who exhibited the screenshots of the conversations that the other kid had with the priest.
RSN: But nothing to the priest…
LEV: No.
RSN: And that was the sole case you were aware…
LEV: Of this one I was aware. There were rumors, but I have no details; they were gossiping, even jokes. Out of place kind of jokes, made by those in the Lower Seminary. A lot was said about a priest who was part of the formation team and who was taking seminarians to play videogames up until late at night at his room. And there was gossiping about that, obviously, but never something precise, concrete.
RSN. Yes. And often people affected by this behavior are in a similar condition to yours do not want to talk about their experiences there.
LEV: And I do not judge others, no. If they keep quiet for their own reasons, I understand. It is perfect. That is why I avoided this kind of situations in my testimony, because I am not interested in exposing or affecting other persons.
RSN: And were you made aware of this kind of situation during the courses at the Seminary? Were you told what to do in case something like this happened to you or this was something unspoken?
LEV: To the best of my knowledge, the authorities at the Seminary never spoke about something like this, of this kind of situations.
Only after the fact
Once this happened, they started to talk about this issue. It was then that they organized some activities. And beware of this, beware of that. But it was only after my case became known.
RSN: How it was for you and your mates to deal with Aristeo Baca’s case?
LEV: As a matter of fact, when one of Baca’s trials was happening, I was on my last days at the Seminary, about to leave. And yes, I remember that bothered me a lot.
All the professors said that we should pray a lot because of the damage done to the priests, the defamation, this, that. But they never really addressed the issue as to whether he was guilty or not. Later it was known he was guilty. I am not saying it, it was the courts.
RSN: Yes, that was the ruling.
LEV: It was also to build this idea that we were all part of a team and that it was an attack on the Church.
RSN: That was what the Archdiocese of Chihuahua was doing when they were facing similar cases.
LEV: We would dedicate hours of Eucharistic Adoration because of the “defamation” against the priests.
RSN: Because of Baca’s case.
LEV: Yes, when the Baca’s case. There was a difficult, “dense” environment.
RSN: And you were living that during your last days at the Seminary…
LEV: But, up to a certain extent they convinced some of my friends that I had actually had intimate homosexual contact with other seminarians or with priests.
RSN: Of course, blame the victim… A typical strategy in this kind of cases…If you pay attention to Baca’s case, which is what the diocese did, to discredit the victim’s family. They claimed that the family accused Baca because they were stealing money from the Sunday’s donations. Same model, always putting the institution before the person.
If you read Spanish, Los Ángeles Press published back in 2023 a story on Aristeo Baca’s case one of the few priests actually sentenced in Mexican courts for clergy sexual abuse. The story is linked above.
Investigaciones
Aristeo Baca y la impunidad de los sacerdotes de Ciudad Juárez
LEV: So, yes, I lived there some sort of counterattack. I lost many of my friends, and I can accept that as a consequence of the pain I was very reactive. I was also saying things to hurt them.
RSN: But you were the victim of the attack from that deacon, what were they expecting from you? They dismissed basic procedures. You told me that there were no warnings about what to do in case of an attack from a cleric or other seminarian. The crisis is forty years old. It is not something new. They should have been warning you at least since 2007. Back in 2006, Rome issued this instruction about education in the seminaries.
Would you like to say something more?
LEV: Thank you very much for your time.
RSN: Thank you.
Besides Cavadini, the toxic culture affecting Catholic seminaries has been the subject of another recent study. Filipino sociologist Vivencio Ballano published back in April of this year Celibacy, Seminary formation, and Catholic clerical sexual abuse. Exploring sociological connections and alternative clerical training. More information about that book is available here.
Chapters of that book were published before as articles in academic journals. Some of such articles are available at the author’s pages in both Research Gate and Academia.org.
Before Cavadini and Ballano, there are the articles and books published on their own by Richard Sipe and Andrew Greeley.
Both made clear, by the first decade of the current century that seminary education was in desperate need of change.