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Priest With a Dangerous Past

Cardinals Mahony and Rivera Said to Have Aided Fugitive Molester Cleric

BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER

Cardinals Roger Mahony and Norberto Rivera of Mexico City aided a fugitive priest accused of molesting minors, a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles superior court on September 19 alleges. The suit was filed by lawyers for Joaquin Mendez, who claims Father Nicolas Aguilar repeatedly raped him in 1994 when he was an altar boy in Mexico.

In late February or early March 1987, Rivera, then bishop of Tehuacan, Mexico, sent Aguilar to Los Angeles. According to a Los Angeles police report, "Father Aguilar had requested he be accepted in Los Angeles as a priest from Mexico because of family problems and ill health. Aguilar was accepted with a letter from an Archdiocese in Mexico." Cardinal Mahony made Aguilar assistant pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Los Angeles, but two months later transferred him to St. Agatha's in Los Angeles. In December, two altar boys at Our Lady of Guadalupe told their mother that they had been abused by Aguilar.

The lawsuit against Mahony and Rivera alleges that Monsignor Thomas Curry, then vicar general of the Los Angeles archdiocese, learning of the allegations against Aguilar, tipped him off about his impending arrest. But archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg called the lawsuit's allegations "preposterous and totally without foundation," according to the September 20 Los Angeles Times. When the district attorney charged Aguilar in 1988, "the priest was 'swiftly' removed from ministry and reported to the police, said Tamberg... 'Aguilar fled without warning, after saying he would stay in the L.A. area with relatives.'"

But, according to police reports, Curry did not inform police of the allegations prior to January 11, several days after Aguilar had fled to Mexico. Police reports say that the mother of the boys notified the archdiocese on January 6 that Aguilar had molested her sons. They also state that she contacted the pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Father Bill McClean, about the allegations of molestation on January 8, 1988. McClean "immediately notified Monsignor Curry," vicar of clergy, who on January 9 "confronted Father Aguilar with the allegations," which the priest denied, "and relieved him of all priestly duties pending an investigation."

On January 11, Sister Renee, the principal at the Our Lady of Guadalupe School, informed police of the allegations against Aguilar. A detective contacted Monsignor Curry, who said Aguilar was at his sister's house in Venice. But arriving there, the detectives learned that Aguilar's sister had taken him to Tijuana on January 9, the day Curry had confronted him, "to catch a plane to Mexico City." According to the police report, Aguilar had told his sister "he had to return to Mexico because the Los Angeles Archdiocese did not extend his permit to stay." According to a police report, "Curry said Aguilar stated he was going to return to Mexico at the first of the week. 1-11."

According to the September 20 Times, Aguilar may have molested about 26 altar boys at the two Los Angeles parishes where he served in 1987 and 1988. But this was not, it seems, a new pattern of behavior for the priest. Associated Press reported on September 24 that Aguilar was accused of molesting over 50 boys in 1987 when he was a parish priest in Puebla. Rivera, the suit alleges, helped cover up the abuse and helped to transfer Aguilar to Los Angeles. Michael Finnegan, one of the lawyers representing Mendez, told me in early October that "there is information that [Mexican Church authorities] knew in the late '60s, when Aguilar was in seminary, that he had either molested or tried to rape another seminarian, and that was reported in a seminary in Mexico." According to Finnegan, shortly before Bishop Rivera sent Aguilar to Los Angeles, the priest "was beat up pretty bad, and it came out through that that he had abused some kids."

Both the Times and Associated Press reports left out an interesting bit of information. It appears that Rivera may have told Cardinal Mahony in a letter sent before Aguilar came to Los Angeles that the priest suffered from homosexual problems.

Subsequent to the accusations against Aguilar and his flight to Mexico, Cardinal Mahony showed himself ready to aid in the police investigation of the priest. On March 4, 1988, Cardinal Mahony sent Bishop Rivera a letter detailing the allegations of sexual molestation against Aguilar and asking Rivera to send him "as quickly as possible a list of all this priest's relatives, including the names of his parents, his siblings, his aunts and uncles and other family -- residing anywhere in Mexico. Additionally," Mahony continued, "we need the addresses and telephone numbers of all his family members." Said Mahony, "we are willing to bear the cost necessary in order to obtain this information as quickly as possible."

On March 17, 1988, Bishop Rivera replied to Mahony, informing him that Aguilar had been a priest at the San Sebastian Cuacnopalan parish for over a decade, "and surely the police there can find much information." Rivera also gave the names of Aguilar's parents and the place of his birth, "where numerous relatives reside who could provide additional information as to his whereabouts." Mahony, said Rivera, "will understand that I'm not in a position to find him, much less force him to return and appear in court." And then Rivera noted, "in the letter of presentation of January 27, 1987, I included an identification photograph, and in the confidential letter of March 23 of the same year, I provided a brief report on the priest's homosexual problems."

In a letter, dated March 30, 1988, Mahony expressed his surprise at Rivera's mention of the "confidential letter of March 23." Mahony said he had, indeed, received the January 27 letter of identification, but in that letter, according to Mahony, Rivera had only written, "due to family and health reasons, Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera ... wishes to reside in Los Angeles for a period of one year and serve the Los Angeles Archdiocese." "I' m very confused," wrote Mahony, "because in your letter of January 27, 1988, you did not mention any other personal problems concerning Father Aguilar. If you have written me that Father Aguilar had some 'homosexual' problem, I assure you that we haven't received that in the Archdiocese. We have here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles a quite clear plan of action: We do not admit priests with any homosexual problems."

It may be a surprise to some that the archdiocese does not admit priests with homosexual problems. But, Jeff Anderson, the main attorney representing Mendez, told me, "when they say homosexual problems in that clerical culture, that is actually code for a history of sexual abuse. They hardly ever talk about homosexual problems except in the context of abuse."

But why would Mahony make this claim in a confidential letter that, presumably, would be read by no one except Rivera? Because, said Anderson, Mahony feared that the letter could at some point become public. "He was already under a siege and so he had to make a repudiation to protect himself," said Anderson. "I had already sued him for his conduct as bishop of Stockton, and he had a history that he knew was likely to be publicly scrutinized; he knew he had to cover himself."

The suit to which Anderson referred, Howard v. the Diocese of Stockton, however, did not arise until 1998, ten years after Aguilar fled to Mexico. The case, however, dealt with allegations that Stockton priest, Oliver O'Grady, had molested two brothers, Joh and James Howard, in the mid-1980s, while Mahony was bishop of Stockton. It was alleged at the 1998 trial that police had brought molestation charges against O'Grady in 1984, only to drop them upon the intervention of the diocesan lawyer. In 1998, Mahony claimed that in 1984 he had not been given the details of the charges against O'Grady and knew nothing of previous allegations (dating from 1976), before he became bishop of Stockton.

Anderson said he could not prove the existence of Rivera's March 23, 1987 confidential letter to Mahony. But, said Anderson, he will be demanding Aguilar's personnel files.

After returning to Mexico in 1988, Aguilar, though a priest of the diocese of Tehuacan, continued serving in Mexico City where, in 1994, he allegedly raped Joaquin Mendez, then 13 years old. When Rivera became archbishop of Mexico City, Aguilar returned to the Tehuacan diocese. But, according to a timeline provide by Mendez's lawyers, sometime between 1997 and 2003, Aguilar worked "at a parish in Mexico City for sometime."

But Cardinal Rivera denies any complicity in Aguilar's alleged crimes. According to the September 24 Associated Press story, Rivera said, "in no moment have I covered up for Nicolas Aguilar or for anybody else. When I was named Archbishop in July 1995, [Aguilar] fled Mexico City, as I was clear that I would not allow him to be a priest in this diocese." Rivera said he did not know the whereabouts of Aguilar, though he had been reported to be serving as a priest in Puebla, which borders the Mexico City archdiocese. As of late September, however, Church officials in Puebla had not responded to inquiries as to Aguilar's whereabouts.

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