Bishops consecrated by Norberto Rivera Carrera as principal consecrator
José de Jesús Martínez Zepeda
12 April 1997
Marcelino Hernández Rodríguez
5 February 1998
Felipe Tejeda García
4 March 2000
José Luis Fletes Santana
4 March 2000
Guillermo Rodrigo Teodoro Ortiz Mondragón
4 March 2000
Francisco Clavel Gil
27 June 2001
Norberto Rivera Carrera (born 6 June 1942) is a Mexican prelate of the Catholic Church who was archbishop of Mexico City from 1995 to 2017. He was made a cardinal in 1998. He was Bishop of Tehuacán from 1985 to 1995.
In 2001, when Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel Degollado faced sexual abuse allegations, Rivera referred to the charges as "a plot."[2] In 2002, Rivera criticized the US media for its coverage of clergy sexual abuse. He called it "an orchestrated plan for striking at the prestige of the Church." He compared it to "what happened in the past century with the persecutions in Mexico, in Spain, in Nazi Germany and in communist countries."[3]
In 1996, he forced the resignation of the abbot of the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe after he had questioned the historical truth of Mary's appearance to Juan Diego.[8] He denounced the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples in 2009 and 2010. He said: "Our children and youth run the grave risk of seeing these types of unions as normal and they can falsely understand that sexual differences are simply a personality type.... Homosexual acts, in effect, close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not come from a true affective and sexual complementarity."[9][10]
In 2011, as the Supreme Court of Mexico prepared to deliberate on a ruling proposed by Justice Fernando Franco that would overturn anti-abortion constitutional amendments enacted in numerous Mexican states.[11] Rivera Carrera said that "abortion is never a solution for anything." On 25 September he said: "The Church always reaches out to pregnant women who are being pressured at work, by family members or friends to remind each one of them of the great value of motherhood." He noted that the Mexican bishops emphasized that the "taking of human life through the various abortifacient techniques must not be tolerated, and the taking of the life a human being, even in its initial phases, is not licit."[12]
On 13 February 2016, Francis addressed the bishops of Mexico and appeared to castigate them: "Do not lose time or energy in secondary things, in gossip or intrigue, in conceited schemes of careerism, in empty plans for superiority, in unproductive groups that seek benefits or common interests. Do not allow yourselves to be dragged into gossip and slander."[14] In March, an editorial in the newspaper of the Mexico City Archdiocese defended the bishops and said that the pope had received "bad advice". Observers identified Rivera as both a target of the pope's speech and the source of the editorial response.[15]
Sexual abuse case
Beginning in 1989, Los Angeles prosecutors pursued a Mexican priest on charges of sexual abuse while he was stationed in the US for more than a decade. A lawsuit filed there charged that as Bishop of Tehuacán and Los Angeles Cardinal, Roger Mahony had shielded a priest abuser.[16][17] Rivera said that when he approved the priest's transfer to Los Angeles, he had heard "accusations of homosexuality, but not of pedophilia."[18] Rivera asked the Vatican to laicize the priest in 2007.[19]
COVID-19
Rivera was admitted to the hospital on January 12, 2021, suffering from COVID-19.[20] His former spokesperson, Hugo Valdemar Romero, said that Rivera was in intensive care and that the archdiocese had refused to pay his expenses. Rivera received the Anointing of the Sick on January 19.[21][22] Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes said that the Archdiocese would pay for Carrera's and other clerics' care in a public hospital "because of the economic situation experienced by the Church throughout the country and in communion and solidarity with what thousands of Mexicans have lived during this pandemic", but Carrera had chosen to leave a public hospital, Hospital Ángeles Mocel, for a private hospital.[23] The Archdiocese of Mexico announced in early March that Carrera had left the hospital.[24]
^Malkin, Elizabeth (13 February 2016). "Francis Admonishes Bishops in Mexico to 'Begin Anew'". New York Times. Retrieved 27 June 2017. 'I have never seen a scolding so severe, so drastic, so brutal to any bishops' group,' said Roberto Blancarte, a scholar of the Mexican church at the Colegio de México. 'The bishops will have to examine their consciences.'