Ex-altar boy to fight on against Mexico cardinal

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A former altar boy vowed on Wednesday to continue his legal fight against the head of Mexico City's Roman Catholic diocese despite a U.S. court's dismissal of a suit that accused the clergyman of protecting a priest wanted for sex abuse.

A Los Angeles judge ruled on Tuesday that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction in the case against Cardinal Norberto Rivera. The lawsuit rocked the church in predominantly Roman Catholic Mexico.

Joaquin Aguilar Mendez says he was raped in Mexico at age 13 by a priest named Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, who is wanted on multiple abuse charges in Mexico and the United States.

He said Cardinal Rivera helped move the priest between Mexico and the United States to shield him from arrest.

Aguilar Mendez said his lawyers would appeal the Los Angeles ruling within 15 days in a renewed bid to have the cardinal tried in the United States.

"(Cardinal) Norberto Rivera will not escape. I knew this was going to take time," he told reporters.

Both Cardinal Rivera and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony were named in the original suit.

Mahony says the Mexican church did not warn him of Aguilar Rivera's record when the priest arrived in Los Angeles in 1987. Aguilar Rivera left Los Angeles on short notice in 1988 before he could be investigated for sex abuse and worked for several parishes in Mexico.

Joaquin Aguilar wants the case tried in a U.S. court because he believes he cannot get a fair trial in Mexico City, one of the world's largest Catholic diocese.

Mahony, head of the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States, settled his part of the lawsuit in July, when the church agreed to pay a record $660 million settlement to more than 500 victims of clergy sex abuse.