A 55-year-old man who says he was sexually abused as a boy by a former Roman Catholic priest is suing the Archdiocese of Miami.In a complaint filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, the man, identified only as ``John Doe No. 67,'' said the Rev. Ernesto Garcia-Rubio, a priest later defrocked amid other sex-abuse allegations, molested him several times in the late 1960s and early '70s.
The man, who lives in Miami-Dade, said Garcia-Rubio first abused him in ``1968 or early 1969'' while he was a priest assigned to Sts. Peter and Paul parish and elementary school in Miami. Doe said he was abused again when Garcia-Rubio was the chaplain and spiritual director at Immaculata-La Salle High School in Coconut Grove.
``I am filing this lawsuit today because I have suffered so many years of shame because of what Garcia-Rubio did to me. I recently learned that the Archdiocese of Miami officials were aware of all the terrible things that happened to me and other boys,'' Doe said in a statement released by his Aventura attorney, Jessica Arbour.
Arbour said Doe only recently stepped forward after seeing news coverage in March about another lawsuit claiming sexual abuse by Garcia-Rubio that she had filed. That lawsuit cited a confidential 1968 letter in which Washington-based Apostolic Delegate Luigi Raimondi warned then-Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll that Garcia-Rubio ``was forced to leave Cuba because of serious difficulties of a moral nature (homosexuality).'' Raimondi inserted the parentheses around the word.
Some experts have said the term was used by the Catholic Church then to describe priests involved in pedophilia or child abuse. Raimondi urged Carroll ``to protect this priest with your accustomed paternal charity.''
The letter was first made public in 2005 during a lawsuit naming Garcia-Rubio filed by Fort Lauderdale lawyer Russell Adler. Other attorneys have named Garcia-Rubio in several lawsuits alleging sexual abuse.
Now 73, Garcia-Rubio was celebrated as the archdiocese's ``patron saint'' of young Central American and Cuban refugee boys who flocked to his Our Lady of Divine Providence in Sweetwater in the 1980s. He served there from 1975-88.
Amid allegations that he had raped a young parishioner and sexually abused four Central American refugees, Garcia-Rubio left the priesthood in 1991, married in 1992 and had a child the following year. Since 2000, he has lived in Costa Rica.
``The Catholic Bishops in the United States addressed the issue of sexual abuse with its charter promulgated in 2002 and continue to be diligent in its promise of `Protecting God's Children.' The response to victims of abuse has been pastoral and the abusers subject to civil and canon laws,'' archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said Wednesday in a statement.
``As always, the Catholic Church's concerns are for the victims and a prevailing sense of justice. In addition, over these past eight years, it has been forthcoming and taken steps to keep our children safe through training and background screenings.''
She continued: ``The Archdiocese of Miami policy on sexual abuse is very clear: A report of these allegations is made to the State Attorney's office; our internal Archdiocesan Review Board reviews the allegation; and pastoral care and counseling are offered to the alleged victim.''
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