Mexico bans Catholics who want to investigate sex abuse

October 16, 2006 3:46 PM

Mexican government bans American Catholics who sued Mexico City PrelateThe Mexican government took the unprecedented and controversial step of banning Dave Clohessy of SNAP and Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer specializing in abuse cases, from entering the country for five years. The men had filed a lawsuit against Mexico City Archbishop Norbeto Rivera, who they allege covered up sex abuse in his diocese.
posted by parmanparman (14 comments total)

No sweat, they'll just hop the border like the millions of immigrants heading the other way. HOW DO YOU LIKE DEM APPLES, MEXICO?
posted by keswick at 4:09 PM on October 16, 2006

In other news, Mexico is re-naming the Rio Grande "DeNial."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:15 PM on October 16, 2006

Told you religions sucks, expecially when they pretend not to impose moral, but they never said they were not going to use other ways :)
posted by elpapacito at 4:19 PM on October 16, 2006

You have to wonder about this though, I mean how hard would it be to just make stuff up in order to collect a payout?
posted by delmoi at 4:22 PM on October 16, 2006

Hmm... the article indicates Mexico banned lawyers for doing work on a tourist card. If they indicated when they entered the country they were doing work while in Mexico. The guy at immigration would have put the right stamp on the card and they'd be on their way. Lying on a immigration document could get you banned from the country. The US would kick out Mexican lawyers that were doing work in the US on a tourist visa.

Now, the Mexican government could have found another loophole to kick out the guest the Archbishop didn't like. But we'll never know because they entered the country under false pretenses.

And technically, keswick is right, they don't check on the Mexico side of the border when you walk/drive over unless you go beyond the border zone.
posted by birdherder at 4:24 PM on October 16, 2006

They were stealing Mexican jobs!
posted by Krrrlson at 4:27 PM on October 16, 2006

delmoi: well if he enters mexico in the next 5 year it will be easy to say it was made up, even if he claims the opposite. Yet imagine you want crazy americans to bring their dollah on this side of the board...would you walk away from a fool and his money ?

Curious that customs, in a sea of illegality, notices this one "stealing mexican jobs" so to say
posted by elpapacito at 4:42 PM on October 16, 2006

parmanparman posted "The Mexican government took the unprecedented and controversial step of banning Dave Clohessy of SNAP and Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer specializing in abuse cases, from entering the country for five years."

Googling around, it certainly doesn't seem that deporting people working on tourist visas is unprecedented for Mexico. Is it the length of the deportation that is unprecedented, or does "unprecedented" just make for good copy?
posted by Bugbread at 5:10 PM on October 16, 2006

seems to me that if you want to persue a case in the mexican court system you need a mexican lawyer ... at least, that's the kind of lawyer i would hire

but i guess that kind of common sense means nothing when you have a point to make ...
posted by pyramid termite at 5:48 PM on October 16, 2006

It sounds as though it was only unprecedented for Mexico to deport Dave Clohessy and Jeffrey Anderson.
posted by leftcoastbob at 6:36 PM on October 16, 2006

They have too, many the Vatican owns most of the land in Mexico city.
posted by nyxxxx at 7:46 PM on October 16, 2006

Bush is going to pay for this.
posted by dhammond at 9:20 PM on October 16, 2006

the Vatican owns most of the land in Mexico city.

nyxxxx, that is awfully incorrect, the Vatican does not own most of the land in Mexico City by any means. If any one "entity" owns huge portions of land in Mexico City, it's Carlos Slim.

Now, the guy who is currently the Interior Minister (sinister, I would say) in Mexico has a terrible background pushing his own ultra-catholic interests. There is a pps making the rounds where they quote his college thesis, where he says that democracy is not an adequate system of government and that only a system where society is led by priests could succeed.

There is also the anecdote from a few years back when he was Labor Secretary. The teacher at his daughter's school had the kids read an excellent book called Aura, by Carlos Fuentes, in which a guy falls in love with the ghost of a woman who lives in his house. There is a passage where the author suggests, very subtly, a "sexual" thing between the man and the ghost/woman. This guy had the teacher fired.

That is the man who got the guys who are accusing Norberto Rivera barred.
posted by micayetoca at 4:45 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Bringing the Fight for Clergy Child Abuse Victims to an International Arena: Cases Show that California/Mexico Priest Shuffling Also Occurred
posted by homunculus at 6:09 PM on October 20, 2006