Mexico Church Officials Seek Inquiry of MN Lawyers, WCCO, September 21, 2006

Mexico Church Officials Seek Inquiry of MN Lawyers

WCCO
September 21, 2006

http://wcco.com/crime/local_story_264171242.html

Photo by The CBS

(AP) Mexico City, Mexico Roman Catholic Church officials asked for an investigation Thursday of two Minnesota lawyers and an activist they claim are trying to extort money from the Mexican church with a lawsuit alleging Cardinal Norberto Rivera protected a pedophile priest.

Church lawyer Bernardo Fernandez de Castillo accused the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests of seeking to bleed the church, "but neither the cardinal nor the archdiocese will be blackmailed," he told a news conference. "We consider this to be extortion."

U.S. lawyers, backed by the Chicago-based SNAP, filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of Mexican Joaquin Aguilar Mendez, 25, in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The lawsuit alleges Rivera and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony conspired to protect Catholic priest Nicolas Aguilar, who has been charged in California with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child.

Similar suits have cost U.S. Catholic dioceses an estimated $1.5 billion, alarming church leaders worldwide.

The victims' rights group held a news conference here Wednesday alleging that the fugitive cleric is still saying Mass at churches in the central state of Puebla, where he once served as a priest in Rivera's diocese.

Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for Rivera's office, said Thursday that the priest is not authorized to perform any church duties and officials are not aware of him doing so.

Shortly after the plaintiffs gave a news conference Wednesday, immigration officials detained and questioned two of Aguilar Mendez's U.S. lawyers -- Jeff Anderson and Michael Finnegan, both of of St. Paul, Minn. -- as well as Survivors Network national director David Clohessy.

Mexico's immigration office said it sought to verify the visas of the three men after receiving an anonymous call questioning their status. It said there were concerns about whether they were authorized to give a news conference after entering the country on tourist visas.

Clohessy said they had no problems going through immigration at the airport on the way home.

Fernandez del Castillo said he will file a complaint asking the Mexican federal prosecutor's office to investigate further.

He called it an "outrage" that foreigners would "enter the country deceiving U.S. immigration officials by passing themselves off as tourists, when in reality, the lawyers came to work illegally, giving a defamatory news conference full of lies, threats and intimidation -- thumbing their nose at our laws."

A statement from Rivera's office said the cardinal "at no time covered up" the priest, "nor has he participated in any conspiracy to give asylum in Mexico to priests accused of sexual abuses."

Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese, said the conspiracy charge "is preposterous and without foundation."

Vance Owen, a Texas attorney representing Aguilar Mendez, said Wednesday the lawsuit asks for compensation because the victim "has suffered a great deal." He said no specific amount had been requested.

"The only thing I want is justice," added a solemn Aguilar Mendez, who said he would like to see the priest go to jail.

The lawsuit accuses both cardinals of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and sexual battery, and it charges Aguilar with sexual battery, Owen said.

The lawsuit alleges the priest raped Aguilar Mendez in October 1994 when the 12-year-old went to the priest's room at the rectory to use a restroom. It said the priest told the boy to keep quiet or his siblings would suffer the same abuse.

It also claims that Rivera, now Mexico's most prominent cardinal, helped cover up abuse involving 50 boys while Aguilar served as a parish priest when Rivera was bishop of Tehuacan in the 1980s. Valdemar said Aguilar was not under the cardinal's jurisdiction in 1994.

The lawsuit says Rivera later helped in Aguilar's transfer to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Valdemar denied that, saying Aguilar asked for a leave of absence after Rivera reprimanded him for his "immoral behavior." Aguilar wanted to visit family in Los Angeles and later asked to be allowed to practice there.

Valdemar said Rivera warned Mahony that Aguilar had a "problem with homosexuality" but he did not say anything about him being a pedophile because he was not aware of the problem then.

The lawsuit said as many as 60 alleged victims from both Mexico and the U.S. have come forward with allegations against Aguilar.

Rivera heads the Mexico City archdiocese and was considered a candidate to replace Pope John Paul II when the pope died last year. Mahony heads the United States' largest archdiocese.