Mexico City – Roman Catholic Cardinal Norberto Rivera on Sunday urged a Mexican priest accused of raping and molesting children to hand himself into authorities and denied charges that he had helped to protect the fugitive.
In a statement made after mass in the capital’s metropolitan cathedral, Rivera said that Rev. Nicolas Aguilar, who has been formally charged in California with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child, was damaging the church by evading arrest.
“I ask that Father Nicolas Aguilar, wherever he may be, responds to the corresponding authorities for the terrible crimes he is accused of, for the good of his conscience and to avoid further damage to the church,” Rivera said. “If anyone has been a a victim of this priest, they should denounce it.” On Tuesday, U.S. lawyers filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that Rivera conspired with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect Aguilar.
The suit was made on behalf of 25-year-old Joaquin Aguilar Mendez, who say says he was raped by Aguilar in Mexico in 1994 after the priest had returned from committing the alleged abuses in Los Angeles. The legal action was backed by the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Rivera, who is Mexico’s most prominent cardinal, said Sunday that the alleged crimes took place before he was made Archbishop of Mexico City in July 1995.
“In no moment, have I covered up for Nicolas Aguilar or for anybody else,” Rivera said. “When I was named Archbishop in July 1995, (Aguilar) fled Mexico City, as I was clear that I would not allow him to be a priest in this dioceses.” Last week, Mendez said Aguilar was continuing to give masses in the Mexican state of Puebla, which borders Mexico City. Church officials in Puebla have not publicly responded to that accusation.
Rivera said the suit against him was an attempt to extort the church and was a violation of Mexican sovereignty. Similar suits have cost U.S. Catholic dioceses an estimated $1.5 billion, alarming church leaders worldwide.
The suit, “is deeply immoral and without scruples. It exploits an alleged victim of sexual abuse who has already suffered too much,” Rivera said. “It is not seeking justice but the dishonest commercialization of justice.” Church officials in Los Angeles have also denounced the legal action, saying it is without foundation.
The lawsuit accuses both cardinals of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and sexual battery, and it charges the Rev. Aguilar with sexual battery.
Documents filed with the court gave an explicit account of the alleged rape of Joaquin Aguilar in October 1994. They said the 12-year-old had gone to the priest’s room at the rectory too use a restroom, 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 alleges Rivera helped cover up abuse involving 50 boys when Aguilar served as a parish priest in Puebla state in 1987. Rivera was bishop of Tehuacan in Puebla state at the time.
Rivera, according to the suit, later helped in Aguilar’s transfer to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The suit said as many as 60 alleged victims from both Mexico and the U.S. have come forward with allegations against Aguilar.
Rivera was considered a candidate to replace Pope John Paul II when the pope died last year. Mahony heads the United States’ largest archdiocese.
