Mexico: 15 bishops and a nun cover up sexual abuse

Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez Jueves, 27 de Julio del 2023, 17:10

The archdioceses of Mexico City and Guadalajara, with the largest number of bishops accused of covering up different forms of sexual abuse.

A major epicenter of the crisis is Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of Chiapas in Southern Mexico, where the superior of a female order is accused of complicity with a bishop in the sexual abuse of five nuns.

By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez

This Thursday, July 27th, the Mexican NGO Spes Viva and Global NGO Bishop Accountability, published a list of 15 bishops and a mother superior of the Catholic Church in Mexico involved in different cases of sexual abuse of faithful of that religious denomination.

The most affected religious jurisdiction in the country is the Archdiocese of Mexico City, currently led by Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, which has three bishops linked to sexual abuse on the list released today.

In the first place, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop emeritus, with two of his former auxiliaries: José Luis Fletes Santana, who was forced to resign from his post in the archdiocese in 2003, without ever explaining why.

Next to him is the current bishop of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Jonás Guerrero Corona, who was auxiliary of Mexico City from 2001 through 2011, when he was named head of Culiacán.

There he gained international fame in 2016 for having confronted then President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, when he tried to legalize gay marriage at a national scale. Guerrero rebuked the then-president in the local media with some of the expressions with which homosexuals are frequently insulted in Mexico.

Although some Mexican media reported the facts, it was Peruvian newspaper El Comercio of Lima, the one who framed Guerrero's "comments" in their real scale by headlining their story "The Mexican bishop who insinuated Peña Nieto is homosexual." Shortly after, Guerrero apologized to Peña.

The three of them, Rivera Carrera, Fletes Santana, and Guerrero Corona, were involved in the public defense of Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, and the cover-up of now deceased priest Nicolás Aguilar Rivera. Aguilar Rivera was a priest who divided his abuses between the dioceses of Tehuacán and Mexico City, in Mexico and the archdiocese of Los Angeles, California, in the United States.

Cardinal Rivera sent Aguilar to Los Angeles, California, where Cardinal and then-Archbishop Roger Mahony already had a track of similar issues with priests who, when accused of abuse, simply were moved from one to other of the many parishes in what is the largest Catholic diocese in the United States.

In Fletes Santana’s case there are many rumors about the reasons why he resigned, but there has never been clarity about the reasons why that happened. In an installment of the series on the 40th anniversary of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, I have offered some details about his case.

San Luis Potosi

Another religious jurisdiction that stands out on this list is the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosí, with the two emeritus, Luis Morales Reyes and Jesús Carlos Cabrera Romero, who were involved in the cover-up of at least one priest who worked with them.

Eduardo Córdova Bautista, who is currently a fugitive of Mexican civil and canon law distinguished himself for being one of the very few priests who, in addition to exercising that ministry, was an official in the San Luis Potosi ombudsman.

Morales Reyes was also president of the national conference of Mexican bishops from 1997 to 2003.

Tuxtla Gutierrez

The archdiocese of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the Southern state of Chiapas, also stands out with an equal number of bishops involved. They are the now emeritus archbishop of Acapulco, Guerrero, Felipe Aguirre Franco, who was bishop in the capital of Chiapas since 1974, as auxiliary and then as head of that jurisdiction from 1988 to 2000.

With him, Spes Viva and Bishop Accountability named Fabio Martínez Castilla, archbishop there since 2013. For other reasons, José Luis Chávez Botello, who was bishop of that city from 2001 to 2003, is included in the list released today too.

The problems in that jurisdiction have to do with the female religious order of the Disciples of Jesus the Good Shepherd. Since said order was, at the end of the nineties, a newly created entity it was the responsibility of the local archbishop, at that time Aguirre Franco, to monitor what was happening there.

This case includes the founder and former superior, Silvia López Pérez, who is considered an accomplice to former priest Salvador Valadez Fuentes. He has been accused of abusing at least five nuns of that female order. Valadez Fuentes was laicized back in 2021.

No more bishops who cover up sexual abuse, a protest in Osorno, Chile, 16th June 2018. Picture Fernando Lavoz. Facebook Group Laicos y laicas de Osorno.

Thirteen years separate the departure of Aguirre Franco and the arrival of Martínez Castilla. In those years, the holders of the archdiocese were Chávez Botello, now archbishop emeritus of Oaxaca, as well as the current archbishop of Monterrey and current president of the Mexican Bishops' Conference, Rogelio Cabrera López.

The two of them, however, are not listed as being linked to the abuses in the female order. Aguirre Franco appears because he is one of the founders, while Martínez Casillas because the first formal complaint in that congregation was presented during his tenure, back in 2015.

Although apparently unrelated to the case of the Disciples of Jesus the Good Shepherd, Chávez Botello is on the list because of how he mishandled cases when he was the head of the Archdiocese of Oaxaca.

In Oaxaca, Chávez Botello covered up for former priest Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, who is one of the super predators of the Mexican clergy, since it is estimated that he abused a minimum of 100 minors from indigenous communities in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca.

Guadalajara too

Another diocese with multiple bishops on this list is that of Guadalajara. The contingent from the capital of the Western state of Jalisco is led, of course, by the emeritus archbishop of that city, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez.

As was seen in the series on the forty years of the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, Sandoval has remained silent about the reasons why one of his auxiliary bishops, Miguel Romano Gómez, who was appointed auxiliary and rector of the seminary, suddenly resigned.

Romano Gómez resigned even though back in 2000 he was appointed one of the youngest Mexican bishops ever, when he was only 41. He was immediately named as principal of the seminary with the largest number of aspirants to the priesthood in Mexico. All this happened when he had been a priest for 15 years.

Just 14 years after being consecrated a bishop, he resigned when he was 55 years old. No one knows for sure what happened to him. There are rumors about him predating seminary students and others that point to him leading a double life with a woman with whom he would have formed a relatively stable couple, but there has never been any clarity about the causes of his departure.

Chávez Botello now emeritus of Oaxaca was also associated at some point with the Archdiocese of Guadalajara as auxiliary bishop.

José Guadalupe Martín Rábago, now emeritus of León, Guanajuato, and a former auxiliary at Guadalajara is said to be responsible for having covered up, at least, José Luis de María y Campos López, a priest accused of abusing minors in León, the industrial capital of the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Martín Rábago was president of the Mexican Bishops' Conference from 2003 to 2006.

Another former auxiliary of Guadalajara included in the list is Javier Navarro Rodríguez. He is part of the list as a consequence of the way he covered up abuse perpetrated by priest Rafael Córdova Esparza, who abused a minor living with Down syndrome in San Juan de Los Lagos, Jalisco.

Other dioceses

With only one case is the diocese of Irapuato, in the aforementioned state of Guanajuato, whose head Enrique Díaz Díaz is known to have denied any type of help to at least one victim who denounced one of the priests in charge of him.

Also on this list is Alonso Gerardo Garza Treviño, current bishop of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, who did everything within his power to cover up the now former priest Juan Manuel Rojas Martínez, known in that city on the Coahuila border with Texas as “Padre Meño”, who is currently sentenced to 13 years in jail for raping a minor.

Gerardo de Jesús Rojas López, current bishop of Tabasco, appears on the list for having covered up and transferred to a hitherto unknown diocese the priest Carlos Francisco Alejo Oramas, who used to abuse underage women.

Also on the list is the current bishop of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, José Guadalupe Torres Campos who, in the nine years he has been in that position, has stood out for covering up and protecting priests Aristeo Trinidad Baca and Istibal Valenzuela Olivas.

The representatives of Spes Viva, Cristina Sada Salinas and Bishop Accountability, Anne Barrett Doyle, reported that they will present more details about those included in this first list of bishops who cover up sexual abuse in religious contexts in the next three months.

Spes Viva, a Latin phrase meaning Living Hope, is a Mexican civil organization promoting greater transparency in the handling of cases of abuse by the Catholic Church and civil authorities in Mexico.

Bishop Accountability, a global NGO brings together victims of abuse from different countries and currently has one of the largest archives on sexual abuse. in religious contexts, Catholic and other Christian denominations, as well as other religious traditions.

The initial list

Two cardinals, a mother superior and 13 bishops.