Alleged abuse victims pressure LA cardinal over outreach effort By Gillian Flaccus Associated Press July 6, 2004 Los Angeles - Alleged victims of clergy sex abuse pressured Cardinal Roger Mahony Tuesday to step up efforts to find possible victims of a Mexican priest who previously worked in two Los Angeles parishes. The priest, Father Nicolas Aguilar, spent nine months at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish and St. Agatha's parish between April 1987 and January 1988, when two altar boys told their mother the priest had abused them. Aguilar was suspended by the diocese and then fled to Mexico. He was charged with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child but never arrested. Officials with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles - the largest in the nation - said they tried in 1988 to reach potential victims by reading letters in both parishes shortly after Aguilar left for Mexico. The letters urged people to come forward and offered counseling, said Tod Tamberg, archdiocese spokesman. Mahony also wrote to Mexican church officials seeking help in returning Aguilar to this country, he said. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that wasn't enough - particularly considering a recent report in the Dallas Morning News indicating Aguilar was thought to be a molester in Mexico before he came to Los Angeles. Clohessy said alleged clergy abuse victims want Mahony to revisit the parishes and reread the letters to parishioners himself. They also want the diocese to set up a reward fund for information about abusive priests. "This would be precisely the kind of situation where what has been done hasn't worked," Clohessy said. "Jesus told us to go out and search diligently and persistently for the lost sheep. He didn't say just give it one shot." The yearlong investigation by the Dallas Morning News published last month found dioceses around the world shuffled allegedly abusive priests across international borders to avoid scandal. The paper found that Aguilar was transferred to Los Angeles from Mexico in 1987 after being attacked in his church residence, possibly by alleged victims. It also found that Bishop Norberto Rivera - who is now cardinal in Mexico City - wrote to Mahony in 1987 to warn him of Aguilar's "homosexual problems" before the priest arrived in Los Angeles. Calls to the Mexico City archdiocese by The Associated Press weren't answered. Aguilar continues to work as a priest in Ciudad Lazaro Cardenas diocese, about 150 miles southeast of Mexico City. "God knows that this is all just a slander to destroy me," he told the newspaper. Tamberg said Mahony never received the 1987 letter from Rivera. He added that Rivera hasn't returned "frequent calls and e-mails" asking for a copy of the letter. No further outreach was planned regarding Aguilar, Tamberg said. "We hope that the attention that has been given in this sad situation will result in people feeling comfortable to ... seek healing," he said. The renewed interest in the Aguilar case is the latest development spotlighting Mahony and his handling of cases of alleged sexual abuse in two different dioceses. A 2002 state law suspended the statute of limitations for civil molestation cases, opening the Los Angeles archdiocese to more than 400 civil claims. In a detailed diocesan report released earlier this year, Mahony apologized repeatedly for mishandling some cases since coming to Los Angeles in 1985. In addition, lawsuits involving alleged abuse that occurred in Stockton, where Mahony was bishop in the early 1980s, have focused attention on his handling of an accused priest there. Plaintiffs' attorneys last week asked a judge to hold the cardinal in contempt of court for allegedly resisting a deposition in those cases. Mahony has also been criticized by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and a national Catholic oversight panel for fighting the release of thousands of pages of priest personnel documents. A judge is reviewing those files and is expected to decide within weeks whether to release them to a grand jury, which could issue criminal indictments.

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