Gaat een rechter uitmaken welke kardinaal, LA Mahony of Rivera, Mexico liegt?

Mexican cardinal deposed in case involving alleged sexual abuse by Mexican priest
International Herald Tribune/The Associated Press
Published: August 8, 2007

MEXICO CITY: Mexico's most prominent cardinal was deposed Wednesday in a U.S. lawsuit accusing him of complicity in the alleged rape of a child by a Mexican priest.
Cardinal Norberto Rivera and his lawyers rushed past reporters and photographers waiting outside offices of the Archdiocese of Mexico without giving comment.

Later in the afternoon, archdiocese spokesman Rev. Hugo Valdemar Romero said Rivera gave his statement voluntarily and argued that a Los Angeles court should not be handling a case involving Mexican clergy and an alleged victim in Mexico

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September, Joaquin Aguilar Mendez alleges he was raped by priest Nicolas Aguilar in Mexico City in 1994 when he was 12 years old.
According to the suit, Aguilar Mendez had gone to the priest's room at the rectory to use a restroom when he was grabbed and sodomized.

The alleged rape came after the priest already had been charged with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child in California.

The suit alleges that Rivera conspired with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect Rev. Aguilar. It accuses Rivera and Mahony of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and sexual battery, and charges Aguilar with sexual battery.

The victim's attorney, Jeffrey Anderson, said Mahony settled with Aguilar Mendez privately last month around the same time the archdiocese reached its record-breaking US$660 million (€478 million) settlement with alleged abuse victims.

He said Aguilar Mendez's case, however, was handled separately and the amount was "modest" compared to the average US$1.3 million (€940,000) promised to other victims.

Anderson said Rivera's attorneys in Los Angeles had sought to limit the scope of the deposition and prevent the plaintiff from videotaping it and filing a transcript with the Los Angeles Superior Court. Judge Elijuh Berle denied their motions.

Attorneys from both sides, a court representative, and a translator were at the deposition. Mexican Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar Martinez from Puebla state was scheduled to be deposed Thursday, said Eric Barragan of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, which had backed Aguilar Mendez.

Rivera's attorney, Bernardo Fernandez, has said only a Mexican court has the authority to rule on the lawsuit. Proponents of the suit argue it involves church officials from both countries.

The lawsuit alleges Rivera, who was a bishop in Puebla state, transferred Aguilar to Los Angeles in 1988 for nine months despite knowing of allegations of abuse against the priest.

In a declaration filed in February, Rivera said he sent a letter to Mahony in 1987 suggesting Rev. Aguilar had problems. Tod Tamberg, spokesman for Mahony, has said the U.S. cardinal never received the letter.

A Los Angeles court gave Mexico extradition orders for Rev. Aguilar in 1988 and 1993, but he continued to work as a priest in Mexico. Since the filing of the lawsuit, his whereabouts have been unknown.
Barragan said the Los Angeles court is expected to decide whether to proceed with the case in September.
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US Lawyers Grill Top Mexico Cardinal in Abuse Case
Cardinal Norberto Rivera, was questioned by U.S. lawyers who accuse him of protecting a priest wanted for child sex abuse.

Mexico's top clergyman, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, was questioned by U.S. lawyers on Wednesday in a child sex abuse case that is a new blow to the Roman Catholic Church in its second-largest stronghold.

The lawyers met with Rivera at the capital's archdiocese building to ask about charges in a U.S. civil case that he colluded with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect a Mexican priest wanted for multiple child rapes.

Abuse scandals have rocked the Catholic Church around the world recently and the Los Angeles diocese this year agreed to pay $660 million settlement.

In Mexico, sexual abuse cases against the church have rarely come to trial but last year the cardinal was accused of covering up abuse in a civil suit lodged in Los Angeles.

"Justice cannot be had in Mexico, that's why we have to take this to foreign courts," said Eric Barragan, spokesman for SNAP, a U.S.-based group for victims of sex abuse by priests.

The attorneys argue that former altar boy Joaquin Aguilar Mendez was raped aged 13 in Mexico in 1994 by a priest named Nicolas Aguilar, who the church shunted between Mexico and the United States to avoid abuse charges.

Rivera, a vocal figure in Mexican public life, was set to be questioned for at least six hours.
"Cardinal Rivera has voluntarily received the lawyers," said a Catholic Church official.

LOSING INFLUENCE
The church is one of Mexico's most important institutions but has been losing influence as lawmakers in the capital legalized abortion and gay civil unions. Evangelical churches also are gaining ground in Mexico while legislators are studying liberalizing laws against euthanasia and prostitution, despite objections from the church.

Rivera, once seen as an outside candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II, says the Los Angeles court does not have jurisdiction over him because the incidents in the altar boy's allegations all took place in Mexico.

Rivera, whose Mexico City diocese is one of the world's largest, is accused of sending the priest to Los Angeles briefly, knowing that he was a pedophile who later raped the altar boy in Mexico's Puebla state in 1994.
The priest is believed to be on the run in Mexico and is wanted on multiple charges of sexually abusing boys in California. He has not been excommunicated.

The two cardinals have contradicted each other's version of events. Mahony says the Mexican church did not warn him of Aguilar's record when the priest arrived in Los Angeles.

Mahony publicly apologized after Mass one Sunday last month to more than 500 plaintiffs in priest abuse cases in Los Angeles who received the record $660 million settlement.
Published: August 08, 2007 19:18h