Catholic Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, the outspoken former archbishop of Guadalajara, admitted this week that a rehab center in Tlaquepaque was used to provide shelter to priests who were known pedophiles.
The remarkable admission was made in an interview Sandoval had with Spanish news agency EFE to promote his new autobiography, titled “Con Mi Propia Voz” (In My Own Words).
Sandoval said the Casa Alberione, operated by the Guadalajara archdiocese, served as a rehabilitation center for priests who suffered from psychological problems, often as a result of alcohol dependency or depression.
Sandoval told EFE that he asked the shelter to stop attending to pedophile priests in 2001 after Pope John Paul 11 ruled that they would have to leave the ministry and that all cases must be reported to authorities.
Later in the interview, Sandoval, in a somewhat contradictory statement, said that he only had to deal with one case of a pedophile priest during his 17 years at the helm of the Guadalajara archdiocese. This man “went to prison” but was later released because of “old age,” he said.
Sandoval, who conducted the interview at his residence in Tlaquepaque not far from Casa Alberione, did not provide EFE with details on how many priests were “treated” for pedophilia at the rehab center.
Sandoval retired in 2011 after making a name for himself for his frequently polemic comments on issues that in the opinion of many citizens went well beyond the confines of the ecclesiastical realm.