A Wetback in Reverse

by Frederick Martin-Del-Campo

  One shameless small-town pastor claimed the cost of servicing the swimming pool of the country home his parishioners had bought for his relatives, without their knowledge, while another paid for a hunter to catch coyotes who’d invaded his garden, according to the newspapers. A minor monsignor in the municipality of Calvillo, then the diocese treasurer, paid his brother 65,000 pesos ($5,000 USD as of 2009) for cleaning services between 2003 and 2006. A spokesman said the cleric’s brother had handled payments for a cleaner the two men shared. The figures released to the state government (which was in no position to cast aspersions of their own) showed that the priests and their assistants claimed 93 million pesos ($7.2 million USD) in allowances and expenses over the said period. Under the Mexican Church’s own rules, parishes could claim expenses for a second home, rent and furnishings, and expenses incurred when staying away overnight from their parish.

  The price for such furnishings was colloquially known as the “Liverpool list,” named after an upscale Mexican department store chain. The list was being axed under reforms of the system currently under scrutiny by the laity and the grueling Press.

  The crooked secular government officials had long refused to offer receipt by receipt breakdowns of their claims for public money, until a ruling under Instituto Federal de Eleccion’ (IFE) ordered them to make the details known. Hence, it behooved them to keep their mouths shut about the Church finances. Thousands of receipts for claims by both secular and clerical big-wigs would be published in July after the congressional elections, but the newspapers railed they had obtained the material ahead of its planned release.

  Members of that part of Mexico’s public that still cared for what happens with their leaders complained the expenses system is too generous, isn’t independently audited, and follows rules drafted by the lawmakers themselves. The first to benefit were the clergy who were really outside of government jurisdiction yet subject to income laws. Then, after much haranguing, some rogue journalist got the offending monsignor to make a statement: “There can be no greater proof of the need for urgent and wholesale reform of the expenses of these priests than the fact that so many people at the top of government have been making such dubious claims.”

  In other words, he was passing the buck!

  A spokesman for the bishop of said diocese claimed the cost of housing taxes he’d never actually paid though later reimbursed authorities. In a handwritten note explaining his mistake, he wrote that “accountancy does not appear to be my strongest suit.”

  Then the bishop urged congregations under his watch to speed up an expenses payment. His secretary confided to a conniving reporter “he might be in line for a papal suspension” if he didn’t receive the money quickly. To me it was just a lot of hub-bub. As I told Bernardo and Nicolas after we’d discussed the issue, the system doesn’t seem to work. I knew it doesn’t work, and it had to be changed. For their part, they half-heartedly agreed.

  I was rather disgusted to learn that Bernardo had been receiving about 18,900 pesos per month for his priestly work ~ that is, doing mostly nothing. By comparison, many grade-school teachers, police and fire-men earn a base salary of about 4,500 pesos per month working their arses off!

  I just had to shake my head in disgust in front of Bernardo who was forced to concede the injustice of it all.

  A key concern for critics of the system is how Mexican lawmakers routinely switched the house they called their “personal” residence. Those changes meant they could claim second home allowances like the costs of furniture, decorating and repairs on several different properties. Other bills show how priests, invoking the necessities of their respective parish, were prepared to claim even small amounts, including designer hand-bags, imported chocolate Santa Claus-shaped snacks, and very expensive silver-service sets. One particularly wealthy parish curate charged the parish for a bag of manure for his country retreat. Previously, the curate’s secretary (and probable live-in lover) acknowledged she’d claimed the costs of two pay-per-view porn movies watched by her “man-of-the-cloth.”

  For shame ... for shame ...

  Thence, with so many vicious little scandals emerging from the very bowels of the Mexican Church, how could I not get my writer’s moxy back? It was all just so titillating that I forgot about my woes and my purpose in Mexico for a spell!

  A MULTITUDE OF SINS

  The whole shebang with the Roman Catholic priesthood was, in the opinion of many Mexicans, long over-due. The awful pederasty scandals in America were just the tip of the iceberg as it were, and Mexicans, long under the oppressive shadow of the Church, were now emerging in force, with courage and rage bursting in their breasts, to accuse their spiritual leaders of the rottenest of interpersonal crimes for which there’d be no remuneration of any kind. Poor Bernardo, I just knew that the erupting scandals were hurting him as much as the next guy. Though he had gladly given up his vocation, he was still faithful to the Church that had educated him and fostered his spiritual yearnings.

  Guadalajara, long the seat of the Catholic hierarchy, was now the epicenter of the condemnation. Aguascalientes, being so close culturally and geographically, was sure to suffer from the backlash. The fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Mexico’s Catholic-run institutions said that priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades and government inspectors, who’d always carried a contempt for the Church going back to the days of La Revolucion’, failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

  Surprise, surprise!

  Decades in the making, a recently released official report sided entirely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 300 church-run, mostly residential institutions. Victims’ advocates said it didn’t accomplish squat, peculiarly because none of the abusers had been fingered (no pun intended).

  The report surmised that church officials always shielded the worst of pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations if nothing else and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many of the priestly pedophiles were serial attackers.

  The investigators said irresistible, irrefutable testimony from still-traumatized individuals, now in old age, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire church apparatus treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential. Bernardo reluctantly concurred.

  “A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for the benefit of boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” so concluded this pervasive study of Mexico’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse.

  The cardinal-archbishop of Mexico City, leader of Mexico’s 100 million Catholics and religious orders at the center of the scandal, offered immediate apologies, though not without some typical self-righteous justification ~ that maybe the brutalized children brought it upon themselves, thus requiring the abusers to beat them good.

  Nonetheless, the cardinal went on to say, “I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. This is not worthy of a Christian nation. This is not worthy of our Lady of Guadalupe, who is the mother of all. Children deserved better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ.”

  Whether anybody believed him, no one would say. I surely did not!

  The Sisters of Mercy, which ran several refuges for girls and so-called fallen women where the report documented degenerative brutality, side-tracked the issue in a statement that said its nuns “accept that many who spent their childhoods in our orphanages or industrial schools were hurt and damaged while in our care” (no wonder nuns are so universally despised). One of the head mothers went on, “There is a great sadness in our hearts at this time and our deepest desire is to continue the healing process for all involved.”

  And, a priestly spokesman for the Chris
tian Brothers order that hitherto ran dozens of boys’ schools, said that reading the report’s “presentation of the history of our institutions, it is hard to avoid feeling shame.” (oh, so NOW they feel shame!)

  At least 50,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from (stereo-typically Mexican) dysfunctional families, a category that often included unmarried mothers, were sent to Mexico’s austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1910s until the last church-run facilities shut-down decades later. The scandals, unveiled by the Jalisco Supreme Court, found that molestation and rape were “endemic” in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, and their clerical over-seers pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual molestation but frequent beatings and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless. But, then again, that is how Mexicans typically treat each-other with or without participation from the Church.

  “In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine ... Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body. Personal and family denigration was widespread.”

  Victims of this medieval system have long decried the truth that has kept them in religious shackles, thus they demanded reportage of their experiences be documented and made public.

  But several victims, who were prevented from attending that month’s debate and scuffled with police outside a central Guadalajara hotel, complained the promised measures didn’t go far enough and rejected the church leaders’ apologies as insincere. Even the church leaders themselves didn’t believe their own excuses.

  Bernardo, trying to view the whole thing with an detached observer’s eye, commented, “Victims will feel a small degree of comfort that they’ve been vindicated. But the findings do not go far enough.”

  Well, obviously ~ that’s all I could add to his prosaic comment.

  But my relative went on to say the report should have scrutinized how children like himself were taken away from parents without just cause, and demanded more answers from Mexican administrations after World War II that ceded control over their lives to the Church.

  There was no argument on my part, but, as if trying to atone for the sins of his former bosses, he insisted that any apologies offered now were “hollow, shallow and have no substance or merit at all. We feel betrayed and cheated today.”

  And this is from a former priest who may have molested Nicolas before he decided on a life of gay activism!

  In any case, the activists fighting against the Church proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past crimes, including building a permanent monument to the victims, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Mexico’s current child protection services. But their findings would not be used for criminal prosecutions, regrettably, in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission to keep the identities of all of its suspected pedophiles, dead or alive, unnamed in the official public findings. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

  Mexican bishops and religious orders all declined to comment on the scandals, citing the need to read the massive document first. The Mexican government already had funded a parallel compensation system that has paid abuse victims for stress and suffering. Thousands of claims remained outstanding, and would probably never be compensated. Victims received the payouts only if they waived their rights to sue the State and the Church. Hundreds have rejected that condition and had taken their abusers and those church employers to court. Fortunately for Bernardo, no one was around to point the finger at him. Furthermore, the anti-clerical activists said children had no safe and easy way to tell responsible authorities about the brutality and sexual degradation they were suffering, particularly the sexual aggression from church officials and older inmates in boys’ institutions. Nicolas interrupted, much to Bernardo’s embarrassment, “The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care ... At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the children. At worst, the children were blamed, as though they were unruly miniature adults who knew what was going on, seen as having been corrupted by the sexual activity, and were punished severely.”

  Then he looked over at Bernardo and added, “Disgraceful. Just, disgraceful. How could they do such things?” Bernardo just nodded.

  The laity bigwigs, much to their credit, dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance. BULLSHIT!

  In their testimony, religious orders conveniently cited this as the most compelling reason why sex-predator-pervert priests and man-hungry monks were sheltered within their organization and moved to new posts where they could go on perverting and fondling children to their hearts’ content. Once again Nicolas just shook his head in disgust.

  But the big-wigs said their fact-finding, which included unearthing decades-old church archives, principally stored in the Vatican, on scores of unreported abuse cases from Mexico’s industrial schools, demonstrated that officials understood exactly what was at stake: their own reputations, and personal secrets they dared not expose.

  They cited numerous examples where school managers hypocritically told police about child abusers who were not church officials, but never did when one of their own had committed the diddling and piddling.

  Bernardo, of course, had to have the final word on this controversy: “Contrary to the Church apologists’ claims that the recidivist nature of sexual transgressors was not understood, it is clear from these tragic cases that they were aware of the propensity for these perverts to re-abuse!”

  And Nicolas just shook his head, “Disgraceful ... just disgraceful!”

  Later, I was to learn that Fulgencio, himself a victim of monkish abuse, made a movie about the subject back in the 1940s:

  Memories Of Ghosts To Come.

  PLAYING CAT AND MOUSE

  IN THE STREETS

  After overcoming a “smoking” farewell party given to me by my hosts, my flight out of Aguascalientes couldn’t have been more precipitous. The bus-ride to my next destination, San Luis Potosi was quiet enough, and the arrival in San Luis Potosi City was pleasant. The city is beautiful, full of colonial charms, not to mention charming Criollo-type people. Today, the downtown is one of plazas and colonial architecture. The “Plaza de Armas” is home to a cathedral and an 18th Century governor’s palace, and chatting couples and families enjoying popsicles can be seen around the city at times. The nearby “Templo de Nuestra Senora del Carmen,” with its colorful tiled domes and famous altars, is considered among Mexico’s finest churches. In addition, San Luis is home to the building Plaza de Toros Fermin Rivera. Potosinos (as residents of the city are referred to) are proud of their bright orange enchiladas potosinas, often served fried with refried beans and guacamole. I suppose they were right to feel proud because the examples I choked down were quite tasty, in spite of the gastritis they later gave me.

  The nearby town of Santa Maria del Rio provides the state with its sparkling mineral water, Agua de Lourdes. The water fills both store shelves and the cocktails of Potosinos, who claim the water can cure a hangover, and I needed some in a hurry. I learned about the latter through their newspapers, and they are known for their objectivity. I’ve depended on them while in Mexico to keep me abreast of current events: El Sol de San Luis, Pulso, El Heraldo de San Luis, La Prensa, San Luis Hoy, La Jornada San Luis y Tribuna. On-line journalism is pretty good, and their “Noticiero Cuarto Enfoque” has been a reliable source of developments through the Web. The Laberinto Museum of Science and Arts, quite an impressive modern structure, allows visitors to make an interactive tour that will switch themes of the art museum with samples of
science and technology, and considering the restlessness that was presently overtaking me, I found it to be a relaxing distraction.

  Here in San Luis they were preparing for the Grito de la Independencia (Independence Cry), always held at mid-night September 16th. Well, that date was a few days off, and I had hoped to make it to Dolores- Hidalgo in the state of Guanajuato where the historic event actually took place in 1810, to witness the proceedings.

  There was, however, no rejoicing to be had for the time being (what a surprise!). And, I did not make the best of my time hereabout. Actually, things were as bad as they could ever be. I was just feeling so run down, and the latest spat of the Aztec Two-Step really drained me, literally. Then, to top things off, as I was rummaging through some merchandise at a side-town Fayuqueros (unlicensed swap-meet) the silly hag who had just taken my money for the web-cam and related attachments I wanted, went ahead and dropped a bombshell on me after I’d just wished her a happy day: considering she’d brought me the equipment, which I did not expect, and talked to me about the uses of the mobile web-cam and the communication programs, and even proposed, out of her own volition, she would eliminate the middle-man mark-up of these toys from the base price if I would refer my friends and family to her, just up and accused me of thieving from her the second she saw some police-men approaching her stall!