ACAPULCO (MEXICO)
El Sur [Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico]
January 12, 2018
By Alejandro Guerrero
Iguala
Unos 30 feligreses de la colonia Villa de Guadalupe en Iguala protestaron y tomaron la parroquia Santa María de Guadalupe para exigir la salida del sacerdote, Luis Antonio Rivera López a quien señalan de supuesta pederastia y apropiarse de los recursos económicos que ingresan a la parroquia.
Around noon yesterday, the inhabitants, members of the neighborhood committee for the December 12 festivities, chaired by Edgar Millán, rang the church bells to summon the residents and later closed the church door with a chain and padlock to prevent the entry of the priest who has been in charge of this parish for four years.
Edgar Millán denounced that the priest “spends talking badly about the inhabitants of the neighborhood” Villa de Guadalupe and complains that they are “poor people” because they do not give him money. He also has not complied with the agreements with the neighborhood committee to carry out the improvements of the church.
He denounced alleged acts of pedophilia by the priest and narrated that the priest has harassed a 16-year-old teenager and that he has a pure child “working” in the church. He “has about five young people living in the room, some of them from the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo who are paid for their studies.”
He said that before Father Rivera López had already been fired from the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also in Iguala, and from other churches in the municipalities of Taxco and Tepecoacuilco due to the same anomalies.
He reported that the priest asked that they give him days to leave and the inhabitants summoned him to leave the parish no later than midnight yesterday. In the afternoon another parish priest arrived accompanied by some people and they loaded Father Rivera López’s belongings into a moving van.
After 1 in the afternoon and in the presence of reporters, the neighbors removed the chain from the door and entered the church led by the president of the neighborhood committee, given the version that inside was one of the young men whom the parish priest told him. gave “hosting”.
The neighbors noticed that the father had sent one of the youths with some keys and a cell phone to take the tabernacle with an approximate value of 25,000 pesos, as well as other objects that are used to officiate the masses.
In the church room, the young man was located accompanied by a woman who said they were the ones who help the father with church activities. The young man identified himself as a sacristan and announced that his father “helps” him at school. He indicated that the father gave him the order to pick up the chalice and other objects.
Later, the neighbors forced them to leave the place and before they checked their bags and backpacks to prevent them from taking objects from the church.