Isabel Llauger
IN THIS ARTICLE
- Two conflicting narratives collide, exposing a deep fracture between the victim and the Spanish Catholic Church
- Full video of both interviews broadcast on Aragón TV’s programme Aquí y Ahora
- Full transcript of both live interviews: first the victim, then Pedro Aguado, separately
Enjoy the reading. Jacques Pintor Team
Two Narratives Collide, Exposing a Fracture Between the Victim and the Spanish Catholic Church
What we present in this Post is material which, when listened to carefully, exposes a reality that cannot be softened without betraying it. First, the victim speaks. Afterwards, Pedro Aguado gives his version without having heard any of the previous interview. There is no adjustment of narrative, no preparation in response to what the other has said. What emerges is what each side maintains when they believe they are presenting their full account. And in that unfiltered confrontation, what appears is not a mere difference of nuance, but a direct incompatibility.
The victim speaks of years of sexual abuse, of a life shattered since childhood, of a youth marked by personal destruction, of a process of deterioration that cannot be resolved in an office or with a carefully crafted phrase. He speaks of a specific abuser, a Piarist priest in Mexico, of specific decisions and specific individuals who, in his account, failed to act as they should have done. He also points to an environment in which that harm was not stopped by Pedro Aguado — now “rewarded” with the episcopacy by the Vatican — when it could have been stopped.
Afterwards, Aguado takes the floor and presents his version with a confidence that is not improvised, but neither is it shaped by what he has just heard. He states that he acted from the very beginning, that he informed the victim of his rights, that he initiated the canonical process, that the process was resolved swiftly and that the most severe sanction possible was imposed. He insists that the abuser was expelled and reduced to the lay state, that he ceased to be a priest, that the Church did what it had to do within its own sphere. And at the most delicate point, he maintains that the victim did not wish to go to the criminal courts and that he respected that decision.
That is where the overall narrative becomes unsustainable. Because the victim states exactly the opposite. This is not a blurred memory or a mere difference of interpretation. These are two incompatible assertions which cannot coexist unless one of them fails at the essential level. The question of whether there was or was not a wish to report the abuse is not a secondary detail or a side issue. It is the axis upon which responsibility turns.
Because if there was a willingness to report and no action was taken, the omission is obvious. And if there was not, then the decision to respect that alleged wish raises an even more uncomfortable question: what happens when the gravity of the facts goes beyond the victim’s private sphere and enters the realm of the public duty to prosecute a crime — and, to add further insult, in direct contradiction to the unconditional obligations established in Pope Francis’ motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi.
Aguado’s discourse relies heavily on the canonical process. He speaks of speed, resolution and a definitive sanction. He presents that process as a sufficient response, as an action that leaves his conscience at peace because what needed to be done was done. But that line of defence collapses the moment the missing element enters the picture: the absence of a criminal trial. The abuser, by Aguado’s own account, died without ever having been tried before a civil court. There is no conviction, no criminal sentence and no public act of accountability before the law. That is a fact.
The victim adds another element which deepens the gravity of the picture and which Aguado cannot incorporate into his own narrative without destabilising it. He states that the abuser remained active, that he celebrated Masses, that he had contact with minors. Aguado responds that he had no knowledge of those facts and that, if they occurred, such acts would have been invalid and gravely disobedient. But the issue is not the liturgical validity of a Mass celebrated by someone who was supposedly no longer a priest. The issue is whether it was possible for a person in that situation to continue acting freely without anyone preventing it. And if it was possible, what failed in order for that to happen.
At that point, the institutional narrative loses its footing. Because it is not enough to declare something invalid for it to cease being real. If it happened, it happened outside the rules, but within an environment that failed to stop it. And if it did not happen, then the victim’s allegations require a response that cannot be limited to denial or claims of ignorance. They require evidence, verifiable facts, something more than a statement of principles. And the victim claims to have such evidence: 32 photographs of the abuser acting as a priest in multiple locations after the supposed prohibition against doing so; certification from the Mexican police confirming that he did not fly to Spain when Aguado claims he sent him there. And more besides.
The terrain becomes darker still when the issue of money and agreements appears. The victim speaks of cash payments made during a period of extreme hardship, of proposals to settle the matter outside the judicial process, of an approach he perceived as an attempt to resolve the case quietly, behind closed doors. Aguado responds in a different language: he speaks of meetings attended by lawyers, of an initiative which he attributes to the victim himself under the concept of restorative justice. These are two ways of describing the same territory, but they are not describing the same reality. The language sounds similar, the vocabulary sounds similar, but the meanings diverge completely.
The fact that Aguado had not previously listened to the victim eliminates the possibility of an adapted response, of a narrative calibrated according to the accusations being levelled against him. What emerges is his account exactly as he himself sustains it when he is not reacting. That gives his words a significance that goes beyond the interview itself. It allows viewers to see the internal logic with which he defends himself, the framework within which he places his decisions, the way he articulates the relationship between the institution and the concrete case. And even more importantly: it becomes visual testimony supporting the victim’s claims, because Aguado repeats almost exactly the same explanations and justifications that the victim had already denounced.
What emerges from that contrast is the exposure of a model of institutional conduct. A model in which the internal process is presented as a sufficient response, in which the criminal route is subordinated, postponed or displaced, in which the institution acts first internally and only afterwards — if at all — externally.
There is no room here for ornate language. There is no way to wrap this in neutral terminology without emptying it of meaning. What remains is a victim who states that he wanted justice and did not find it in the very sphere that should have guaranteed it, and an institutional figure who insists that he acted correctly and respected a wish which, according to the other side, never existed. Between those two narratives there is no room for reconciliation without evidence capable of tipping the balance one way or the other.
The question that remains is neither comfortable nor avoidable. How is it possible that, with protocols already in force, with knowledge of the facts since 2010 — reported to Aguado by a Mexican priest who learned of the abuse committed by his fellow cleric — and with full institutional capacity to act, a case like this could end without a criminal process bringing it before the law? The key witness in this matter, the priest whom Aguado later sent to the United States and who eventually left the Piarists, was allegedly ordered into silence by his bishop.
And yet Vos Estis Lux Mundi explicitly condemns any superior who orders a subordinate to remain silent in cases of sexual abuse. Francis is dead and buried. But what is written remains written, as Pilate said. Les jeux sont faits.
The Aragón TV video
FULL CREDIT TO ARAGÓN TV, PROGRAMME “AQUÍ Y AHORA”
Full Script of the Interviews
PRESENTER – And we are now going to speak to Javier Alcántara. He is a victim of sexual abuse. He reported having been the victim of sexual abuse with aggravated rape for more than three years, from 2007 to 2010, by the Piarist religious José Miguel Flores, and he accuses the then Superior of the Order, now Bishop of Jaca and Huesca, Pedro Aguado, of concealment, serious negligence, abuse of power and coercion. For context, this programme spoke, when a new Vatican investigation into the Bishop of Jaca and Huesca [, Pedro Aguado] became known, with the person responsible for [the Order of the] Pious Schools on behalf of the Bishopric [of Pedro Aguado], and today we are listening to the victim. Javier, welcome. How are you?
JAVIER ALCÁNTARA – Hello, Miriam, good afternoon over there. Thank you very much for giving us this space, above all for giving us the voice that, as victims, unfortunately we very often do not manage to have. More than focusing on the victimising acts to which I was subjected in my childhood, what I want to do is counter certain points which I consider important, [and] which were not stated with the seriousness or the truth required. First of all, there is a protocol established in the Catholic Church called Vos Estis Lux Mundi. Mrs Isabel [Llauger — in charge of communication for the Piarist Order] speaks without context because, when a complaint of sexual abuse or any vulnerability involving a minor is received, the first thing any priest, nun or person in authority must do is provide medical, psychological, psychiatric and legal assistance. So, she says that they insisted very strongly that I should report it. When I saw Pedro Aguado in Cancún in 2019, he told me that he was going to take clear and decisive measures, that he believed me, but that ultimately there would have to be an investigation in order basically to condemn this man. So, if at the end of that investigation he [the abuser, Father José Miguel Flores] was found guilty, then the mechanism would be activated to report him.
Now, I explained to him that I was coming from years of setback, I mean, it was not just 2019; my childhood had been marked, my youth had been destroyed, and I was coming from a very difficult process involving drugs, so at the end of the day it was not as though I was 100 per cent strong enough to go and report it to the prosecutor’s office, as I am today. Then the Vatican sentence comes out — I mean, I am trying to summarise this as quickly as possible. The Vatican sentence comes out, [Pedro Aguado] shows it to me, and that is when I ask him for the second time: so what is going to happen? Because supposedly this man, José Miguel, had already had precautionary measures imposed on him, which is a lie, because only last week the records from the National Migration Institute here in Mexico came out, showing that Mr [Father] José Miguel Flores entered Mexico in 2019 and never left the country again. So, well, there one could say there is an inconsistency, because Mr José Miguel was in Mexico the whole time. So, when the supposed sentence comes out — and I say supposed because they have refused to show it again, arguing that it is a Vatican document, and I believe that, as a victim, I have access to it and should have been given a copy — the sentence comes out and he tells me that José Miguel had basically received the harshest punishment for a priest, namely dismissal from the clerical state and expulsion from the [Piarist] Order. Then, at that moment, he gave me cash, and basically, because of necessity — because, on top of everything else, I worked for the Piarists, I earned 2,800 pesos every fortnight, which would be, I think, about €100 or €110 — you see the money and you see the need, because I was already a father and had to support my wife and my son.
So, at the time, it seemed right to me because from the beginning I trusted Pedro Aguado’s word. Yes. When I questioned him again about what was happening, about when he was going to be handed over, he told me no, that I should have peace in my heart. Those were always his words. And I have an email in my possession that was sent, in which my mother writes to him: “Father Pedro, I have forgiven him,” speaking of José Miguel, “but this is where I am so wounded, because it does not seem fair to me that he should be going around the world living with his mother.” So, if we are talking about justice, then there was none here.
PRESENTER – Javier, let me interrupt you for a moment because what you are telling us is very important, but we have to summarise, as you yourself have said. So, Pedro Aguado, who was Superior of the Order at the time, did listen to you; you told him everything that had happened. He said there had to be an investigation, something which, according to your account, was carried out in the Vatican and which found in your favour, and from that point onwards you were told that he would be removed. But you say that he was not removed from the Order, that he continued carrying out duties within the Church, and that he was not handed over to the courts either. What has been done — and you have done it — is to file that complaint. That judicial process has been opened by the Mexican Prosecutor’s Office, in which Pedro Aguado is accused of concealment, among other offences we have mentioned.
JAVIER A. – That is correct.
PRESENTER – You were telling us that you had been given money; you were explaining your family situation. So, from that point onwards, what steps were taken? We recently reported on that investigation initiated by the Vatican, and that investigation begins because your mother contacted the Vatican to report that alleged concealment by Pedro Aguado. I believe you have received a response, even a recent meeting.
JAVIER A. – Yes, yesterday I had the meeting with [the Pontifical Commission] Tutela Minorum, with Monsignor Luis Manuel Ali Herrera. Regarding the complaint you refer to, in fact, it had already been made on 9 December. It was submitted to the Apostolic Nunciature [in Mexico]; it is stamped by the Nunciature, where the Cardinal Primate of Mexico, Carlos Aguiar Retes, elevates the complaint for serious violations of Vos Estis Lux Mundi after having initiated a preliminary investigation. Something that really draws my attention is that the Primate Archdiocese of Mexico was only informed on 14 August 2025 that Miguel had been removed. In other words, as it were, they had only just been informed that Miguel had ceased to be a priest — four years later.
So, well, what I wanted to get to is that my mother asked him whether this individual could be sued criminally. So this is clear proof that from the very beginning we were in agreement that he should be reported, not as Mrs Isabel says, that they insisted that I should report it. That is completely false and a lie. Now they also speak of a pastoral error; well, it was the high command, in this case Father Sergio Fernando Hernández Avilés, who is also reported, and Father José Luis Sánchez Macías, who was the one who paid me my scholarship month by month.
Something that must be clarified: as a result of the complaint, they cancelled my university scholarship and destroyed that part of my life as well, because I have not been able to finish university with a scholarship for which I paid the difference. And in the meeting held yesterday, I was informed that next week I will receive in writing the decision and the status of the investigation that was opened only on 9 December, which was elevated by the Cardinal of Mexico and activated only on 27 March with Pope Leo.
I can make it public with pleasure; I have no problem with that. I only want them to stop failing to tell the truth and, most importantly, I want justice to be done, because Pedro Aguado is also named in the investigation file for the offences of human trafficking and organised criminal association, which is basically one issue. And the most important thing is also that an effort should be made to seek or obtain the narrative of Father Baltazar Sánchez Alonso, who, since 2010, warned that José Miguel Flores Martínez was a paedophile, and Pedro Aguado decided to send him to the United States and to send my abuser to Spain and then to Ecuador. That is completely true.
PRESENTER – So, Javier, he was not removed as you were told; he was not removed. He continued, we confirm and underline, to carry out duties within the Church. We are also seeing images that would corroborate this. He was not taken before the courts and he died. Therefore, there can no longer be criminal consequences for José Miguel Flores. Now, through this new investigation in the Vatican, together with the open judicial process in Mexico, three people are accused of that offence of concealment, one of them Pedro Aguado. This is where we are. And regarding this latest meeting with the Vatican, you were saying that you had the content of a letter, that we may or may not be able to know the contents of that conversation…
JAVIER A. – No. In fact, this was only raised yesterday, 4 May. The letter or official response from the Vatican will not arrive until next week. At the moment, that is all there is: it is under investigation. I also want to say, and I think this is important, that they say that perhaps he celebrated one Mass; that is a lie. There are 32 photographs from different dates where Mr José Miguel is in the chapel of the Colegio Morelos, which belongs to the Piarists. In Tlaxcala, in the Basilica of Ocotlán, he also celebrated Masses, in his brother’s school, and of course in his brother’s school he also had access to children and young people — something that I always asked for from the beginning, from the moment I sent my video, because I sent a video to Pedro Aguado saying that he should be kept away from children and young people, because ultimately he was a predator. And I also sent an email on 22 January to Mrs Isabel [Llauger], asking and demanding that she know what my story was, that she should not revictimise me, and I have received no reply. I do not know whether that can be made public; I have no problem with it. But, as I said, I just want justice to be done, and part of that justice is that those responsible should pay and admit their mistakes, because that is part of restorative justice: recognising the harm, and not simply saying, “Well, yes, but it happened perhaps only once.” That is a lie. And the Order should stop revictimising me, because they have also approached me and offered me money to make an agreement in the dark, that is, under the table, an amicable settlement, and I do not think that is right. I had an in-person meeting with Father Julio Alberto Álvarez Díaz on 23 March of this year, where they were demanding that I give them an amount because, at the end of the day, they want to compensate the harm.
So I told them no, that my legal team had told them that I only want to do this through the prosecutor’s office and, if possible, through what is called restorative justice, but through the prosecutor’s office — nothing in the dark. And something very particular that I also learned only last week is that the lawyers for the Pious School — well, they identify themselves as acting for the Pious School and Pedro Aguado — have gone to the prosecutor’s office to put pressure on them to close the investigation. Because, unfortunately, the investigation file is so badly put together that they are arguing that, because it is rape and because [the abuser] has now died, it should be closed, that there should be no more. And this very week I filed an appeal to get the summons sent to Spain, to Huesca, and to New York, where Father Baltazar is, and so that they do not silence him, because there is also a recording that I can send you in which Father Baltazar says he is no longer going to speak about the matter and that his bishop has already ordered him to keep quiet. So, I think that is not the important thing.
PRESENTER – Well, Javier Alcántara, your account of the facts has been clear. We hope that you are now well, psychologically well, and that justice is done. Thank you for speaking to us today on Aquí y Ahora.
JAVIER A. – And I am also grateful, and if there is a need for me to say it to Pedro Aguado’s face, I have no problem with that. So I leave that space, that possibility, open as well. Thank you very much for everything.
PRESENTER – Thank you, Javier. Well, we have heard the words of Javier Alcántara, victim of sexual abuse, and we are now going to speak with Pedro Aguado, Bishop of Jaca and Huesca, who is already listening to us. Hello. Good morning.
PEDRO AGUADO – Hello, good morning. Can you hear me?
PRESENTER – Yes, yes, we can hear you well. Good morning. I believe you were unable to listen — and that is a pity — to the interview we have just conducted with Javier Alcántara, victim of sexual abuse. We recall that he has been accusing you; in fact, there is an open judicial process in Mexico and also an investigation in the Vatican. He accuses you of concealment, serious negligence, abuse of power and coercion when you were Superior of the Piarist Order, for not having taken all the measures within your power to bring José Miguel Flores, the man accused of those sexual abuses against this victim, to justice.
PEDRO AGUADO – Yes. Well, I am aware of these views of Javier’s, whom I know well and respect greatly. Certainly, when I first learned of the sexual abuse in 2019, I went quickly to speak with him. I listened to him, I saw the seriousness of the matter and I intervened. I intervened in two directions. First, I clearly explained to him that he had the right to file a civil complaint against his abuser. He did not want to do so; he insisted that it was not in his interest. I explained to him that I had the obligation to make the canonical complaint. I explained what it consisted of and we made it, with a complaint that was fairly swift. In about ten months it was resolved with the expulsion of the abuser from the Order and from the priesthood. And this decision, which was endorsed by the Holy See, was published in the official magazine of the Order, which is on the website, and it is a canonical decision, the most serious and severe that can be taken: the expulsion from the Order and from the priesthood of this young man’s abuser.
PRESENTER – What the victim says, what Javier Alcántara says, is that he was not expelled. He shows images and says that he knows José Miguel Flores was not expelled, but continued within the Church performing certain tasks, that he was not removed, and that this remained the case until he died. He also says that he did insist on pursuing the civil route and that he did not find your support there.
PEDRO AGUADO – Well, I do not think that is correct as stated. That is to say, Mr [Father] Flores was expelled and reduced to the lay state. He ceased to be a priest and a Piarist at the end of 2020. I had no knowledge — neither I nor anyone else — that, although he was no longer a priest, because he was not, he was celebrating Eucharists or Masses, until Javier himself told me after he had died. And that is when I went to Mexico and showed him the sentence signed by me and the Vatican sentence, and translated for him what was in Italian and Latin so that he would understand it properly. In other words, this man was absolutely expelled and completely reduced to the lay state, without being able to be a priest.
If he ever celebrated a Mass, that Mass is not valid and is a profound and tremendous act of disobedience. Javier never asked me to report the abuser civilly; on the contrary, he told me not to do so. Evidently, if he had asked me, I would have done it without any hesitation, as we have always done. I always tried to respect his will, and I can certainly say that the canonical process against Mr Miguel Flores, the abuser of this young man, was very well handled, clearly resolved and definitively settled.
And that leaves me at peace. It is true that this matter is always painful, always complicated, and everything can be improved. Certainly, we all make mistakes, but in no case has there been concealment or any intention to conceal. Quite the opposite.
PRESENTER – When you say that he expressly asked you not to report it, not to file a complaint, do you believe that one should not report a person who repeatedly raped an 11-year-old child over several years? Miguel Flores has died and has had no criminal conviction of any kind; he has not even been tried for it.
PEDRO AGUADO – That is true. What we did was to respect the victim’s will completely. If the case arose today, without any doubt I would insist that it had to be reported, because we have learned from that too. Evidently, the victim’s will was one thing and it was respected by the Piarists in Mexico, but without any doubt, if we had that matter, that event, today, there would be no doubt that it would have to be reported. That is what must be done, without doubt. This man died without being a priest and without being a religious, but it should have been reported. But we respected that will completely.
PRESENTER – Right now there is an open investigation in the Vatican, which we recently learned about, alongside an open judicial process in Mexico against you. And the victim has just told us that attempts have been made, either by you or by the Pious Schools, or by you personally, to reach an agreement with him — we do not know whether financial — so that he would forget the matter. Is that so?
PEDRO AGUADO – No, no, not at all. This is… if he said that, it has been badly explained. That is to say, Javier, with good judgement, proposed that we speak in order to reach a restorative, reparative justice proposal for his case. We replied that we thought that was fine, provided we were in the presence of lawyers. A first meeting was held and then Javier closed that down and did not wish to continue. Recently he has proposed it again and, well, I think that, independently of a judicial process, it is good for both parties, at the victim’s request, to try to reach an integral reparative solution for the abuse committed, because that will be good for him if he asks for it. At this moment he has proposed it and we are willing to move forward, always if he asks for it. In order to do things properly and in order, I think what matters most is that this young man be completely restored in justice and in an integral way. There is no doubt about that. But there has been no initiative on our part. On the contrary, it has been he who proposed it and we who have said that, if he wishes, of course we will talk.
PRESENTER – Pedro Aguado, Bishop of Jaca and Huesca, thank you for facing this and for giving your voice in this interview on the programme Aquí y Ahora. Best wishes.
PEDRO AGUADO – Thank you very much as well. Thank you for the interview. And I want to finish by saying that, on my part and on the part of the Order, there is no doubt about the priority of caring for victims. If there has been any error, of course we are willing to ask forgiveness, but what there always was, was the desire to help him, to listen to him and to accompany him, and that is what we continue to do.
PRESENTER – Thank you once again, and best wishes.
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