MEXICO CITY, Apr 22 (IPS) - As U.S. cardinals are meeting this week in an unprecedented Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, priests in Mexico are increasingly coming under scrutiny after local clergy reported that the Roman Catholic Church had covered up cases and even paid ''reasonable sums'' of money to silence the victims.
The clergy in Mexico is now publicly discussing whether to turn priests accused of sexually abusing minors over to the justice system.
Abelardo Alvarado, spokesman for the Mexican Bishops' Conference, acknowledged that for many years, the Church kept mum regarding cases of child molestation, in order to preserve its own reputation and that of the victims.
''It is positive that this is coming to light now, because it shows that there is concern in the world about the Church as an institution,'' said Alvarado, who said he was prepared to comply with any call from Pope John Paul II to clarify possible cases of sexual misconduct.
A Vatican resolution made public early this year instructed the world's bishops to take vigorous action against priests implicated in sex abuse cases, and for the measures taken to be directly reported to the pope.
It also ordered that any suspicions be swiftly investigated and tried by a secret ecclesiastic tribunal, and that no obstacle be put in the way of the justice system of the country where the incidents occurred.
The Vatican's decision came out after a mega-scandal broke out in the United States over reports of alleged sexual abuse of minors committed by priests, which were reportedly covered up by several bishops.
However, this month Pope John Paul confirmed Cardinal Bernard Law - one of those accused of concealing child molestation cases - in his post in the diocese of Boston.
Law has been accused of protecting, for more than 30 years, Father Paul Shanley, now 70, who allegedly abused at least 26 minors.
But in Mexico there are voices calling out for continued silence. ''It is not appropriate to turn over our sons (implicated in cases of sexual abuse), children of the Church, to civilian authorities,'' stated Bishop Renato León, of Ciudad Juárez, a city on the border with the United States.
''Dirty laundry is washed at home,'' added Bishop Sergio Obeso of Jalapa, a city located on the Gulf of Mexico.
However, Archbishop Norberto Ribera, the senior Roman Catholic prelate in Mexico, repudiated such remarks, and emphatically stated that those accused of sexual misconduct should answer to the justice system, like any other suspect.
In Mexico, the country with the second-largest number of Roman Catholics in the world, after Brazil, the precise number of priests accused of sexually abusing minors is unknown.
The Church claims there have only been isolated cases.
Meanwhile, the followers of Marcial Maciel, the Mexican priest who founded the Legionnaires of Christ in Mexico, and one of the suspected child molesters, say the allegations are merely slander from disgruntled ex-members of the order trying to disparage a ''great man.''
''It is not up to us to judge the heart or the intentions of these people (who accuse the priests), but we are deeply distressed for them, and for the unjust pain it is causing us and the Church,'' said a communique issued by the Legionnaires of Christ in Mexico.
The order, which was created in the 1940s, released its statement after supposed victims of the priest, who lives in Rome, spoke out to the local press in Mexico.
This is not the first time that Maciel has been implicated in sex scandals. In the late 1950s, the Vatican investigated, and cleared him, in connection with accusations of pedophilia.
''In the 1950s he (Maciel) sexually abused me,'' said sociologist Juan Vaca, a former president of the Legionnaires of Christ in the United States.
Vaca, who first spoke out against Maciel in 1997, said the founder of the order promoted him up the ranks due to his ''obedience'' in covering up Maciel's ''sexual deviations.''
A former treasurer of the Legionnaires of Christ, Oscar Sánchez, and an ex-seminarian of that order, Antonio Pérez, have also confessed that they were sexually abused by Maciel.
Antonio Roqueñí, a former member of the Ecclesiastic Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Mexico, said he knew of four or five victims who were sexually abused by priests who received ''reasonable sums of money'' as indemnification and to keep the cases from coming to light.
He added that there might be many more cases, which have not been reported.
But according to Luis Barrera, a former executive secretary of Mexico's Bishops' Conference, the media have taken a sensationalist approach towards reports of child molestation by priests, when the problem is not nearly as widespread as in other countries.
However, anthropologist Carlos Martínez says the Catholic Church no longer can or should cover up its sins. If it wants to look towards the future, he added, it should open itself up to public scrutiny and purge the clergy.