When the scandal over pedophile priests rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the United States in 2002, the shock waves barely registered in Mexico.
Now, just four years later, the Catholic Church in Mexico is facing unprecedented scrutiny. Its most prominent official has been accused of protecting a convicted sex offender, and a raft of criminal suits against alleged pedophile priests is making its way through the courts.
“This is a very key moment,” said Elio Masferrer, an anthropologist who has written extensively on Mexico’s church. “The victims are starting to become aware of their rights and to demand justice.”
Sexual abuse cases against priests were once virtually unknown in Mexico, which is home to the world’s second-largest Catholic population after Brazil.
But over the past few years, experts say, at least a dozen alleged victims have pressed charges. In the latest case, police in Puebla state on Monday arrested a priest accused of raping a 9-year-old boy. And judges are increasingly convicting the offenders, including one priest who was sentenced Sept. 22 to 6 years in jail.
Many victims are motivated by the new willingness of the news media to report on such cases, as well as Vatican statements condemning sexual abuse by priests, experts say.
A civil suit filed Sept. 19 in Los Angeles against Cardinal Norberto Rivera could embolden even more victims to come forward, activists say.
The lawsuit accuses Rivera, the powerful head of Mexico City’s archdiocese, and Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles with conspiring to protect a Mexican priest accused of molesting boys in both countries.
The cardinals deny the allegations, which they say are motivated by greed. Lawyers are seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
The case was filed on behalf of Joaquin Aguilar, 25, a Mexican who says he was raped by priest Nicolas Aguilar in 1994. He says he later reported the incident to police and wrote a letter to Rivera but got no response. The priest and the alleged victim are not related.
“We hope this will inspire more Mexicans to overcome their fear and denounce their persecutors,” said Eric Barragan, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which is sponsoring the lawsuit. The group, which announced the opening of a Mexico chapter in December, has since received more than 100 calls from alleged victims, he said. But most people are too frightened to press charges.
Joaquin Aguilar said he received death threats after going public with his allegations last November. On Sept. 25, he told police his father had been kidnapped at gunpoint for four hours by masked men who ordered him to drop the case.
“I’m afraid for myself and for my family,” he said during a Sept. 20 news conference to announce the case. “The church in Mexico is very powerful.”
His American lawyers, who were interrogated by Mexican immigration authorities after the news conference in Mexico City, accuse the Catholic Church of orchestrating an intimidation campaign.
Church officials deny it. But the case is a watershed in Mexico, where the church hierarchy has long been seen as untouchable, experts say.
Rivera, who had been named as possible successor to Pope John Paul II, is the highest-ranking Mexican church official to be accused in connection with a sexual abuse case.
“It’s an incredible blow to Norberto Rivera, and to the church as a whole,” Masferrer said.
On Sept. 24, protesters waved signs reading, “We don’t want kids raped in heaven” and “Call a rapist by his name” outside the capital’s main cathedral, where Rivera was holding mass.
A flustered Rivera later read a statement to reporters insisting he always had been tough on offending priests. He also announced the appointment of two church officials to investigate sexual abuse allegations in his diocese.
On Sept. 24, the cardinal urged Nicolas Aguilar to confront the “terrible charges” against him and turn himself in to police “for the good of his own conscience and to avoid any more damage to the church.”
Aguilar, 65, is believed to be hiding out in his native Puebla state, where witnesses say he surfaces occasionally to hold mass and sell religious music outside churches.
In 1997 he was charged with sexually abusing four boys in the state, according to Mexican news reports. He was convicted on one count in 2004, but the judge waived the sentence, citing the statute of limitations.
California authorities have charged the priest with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child while he was in Los Angeles for nine months in 1987 and 1988. Those cases are pending, Los Angeles police detective Federico Sicard said, and there is a warrant out for Aguilar’s arrest.
The civil lawsuit charges that Rivera conspired with Mahony to move Aguilar to Los Angeles to save him from facing trial in Mexico. It also alleges that Mahony’s assistant told the priest that Los Angeles police were on his trail. Days later, he fled to Mexico, where he continued to work as a priest.
