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Cardinal in Mexico accused of cover-up

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Page Category: 2006 September

Sept. 20, 2006, 7:20AM
Cardinal in Mexico accused of cover-up
Suit says official protected priest, a convicted child molester with a history of abuse

MEXICOCITY - A Chicago-based victims' rights group Tuesday accused Mexico'smost prominent Roman Catholic official of protecting a convicted childmolester.

In a civil lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, theSurvivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, charged thatCardinal Norberto Rivera covered up a long history of abuse by priestNicolas Aguilar.

Rivera, who presides over the 2,000-priest archdiocese in MexicoCity and had been considered a possible successor to Pope John Paul II,denies the accusations.

"The cardinal has always denied that there was complicity or a conspiracy," said his spokesman, Hugo Valdemar.

Aguilar, 67, was accused of molesting more than 60 boys in Mexicofrom the 1970s through the 1990s, Mexican police say, and another 26boys in Los Angeles during a nine-month stint in the city in 1988.

California authorities charged Aguilar with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child.

He is now believed to be in hiding in Mexico, where he has been convicted on one sexual abuse count.

SNAP charges that Rivera conspired to move Aguilar to Los Angeles tosave him from facing trial in Mexico, and then allowed him to continueserving as a priest upon his return.

"He took an unsafe and unholy priest and sent him to the U.S.,saying 'this is a man you can trust who is safe and celibate,' " saidJeff Anderson, the lawyer in the case. "He didn't warn the people inthe U.S."

The group brought the lawsuit on behalf of Joaquin Aguilar, 25, aMexican man who claims he was sexually abused by the priest in 1994. Hecomplained to Mexican authorities, according to the suit, but nothingwas done. The priest and the alleged victim are not related.

SNAP also accuses Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles of taking part in the cover-up — charges he denies.

Mahoney, who claims he was never told about the accusations againstAguilar, later sent a letter rebuking Rivera for failing to warn him ofthe potential danger.

The case may be unprecedented in Mexico, where nearly 90 percent ofthe population is Roman Catholic and church officials wield enormouspower, analysts say.

"Unfortunately in this country, the church hierarchy enjoy a kind ofprotection in which we're all complicit," said Bernardo Barranco, anexpert on Mexico's Catholic Church.

He argued that after the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in theUnited States in 2002, Mexican bishops opted to protect their own.

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Cardinal in Mexico accused of cover-up

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