- Alberto Rivera
Infobox Person
name = Alberto Rivera
caption =Jack Chick 's rendition of Alberto
birth_date = 1935
birth_place =Las Palmas ,Gran Canaria ,Canary Islands ,Spain
death_date = death year and age|1997|1935
death_place =Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
resting_place = Rose Hill Cemetery inTulsa, Oklahoma
known_for = Anti-Catholic religious activist
religion =Fundamentalist Protestant Alberto Magno Romero Rivera (1935 in
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ,Canary Islands ,Spain –June 20 ,1997 inBroken Arrow, Oklahoma , in theUnited States ) was an anti-Catholic religious activist who was the source of many of fundamentalist Christian authorJack Chick 's stories about the Vatican.Chick promised to promote Alberto's claims even after he died. Rivera claimed to have been a Jesuit before becoming a
Fundamentalist Protestant , and many of the stories Chick published about Rivera involve Jesuit conspiracies.Biography
Rivera is most notable for his claims about his time as a Catholic priest and the inner workings of the Catholic Church. Most of these claims are fiercely disputed by the Catholic Church and others. An exposé by [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gary_Metz Gary Metz] in "Cornerstone Magazine"Citation
last = Metz
first = Gary
title = The Alberto Story
journal = Cornerstone
volume = 9
issue = 53
pages = 29-31
year = 1981
url = http://web.archive.org/web/20051202084221/http://www.cornerstonemag.com/pages/show_page.asp?228] as well as another one in "Christianity Today "Citation
title = Alberto Rivera: Is He For Real?
journal = Christianity Today
volume = 2
issue = 2
date = 1981-03-13] questioned many of Rivera's claims about his life and claimed that he was a fraud. The two conflicting versions are summarized below.Rivera's account
According to Rivera: After education at a Catholic
seminary , he was sent to destroy various Protestant organizations and discredit Protestant leaders, but became disillusioned upon finding that the Vatican was behindFreemasonry and that its reverence of the Virgin Mary was contradicted by the Bible. In 1965, at an Ecumenical Conference in aGuatemala n stadium, he denounced the Catholic Church to an audience of 50,000 people. The Jesuits then sent him to a top-secret sanitorium in Spain to make him recant his faith. Here he was tortured and given drugs until he nearly died, eventually being put into aniron lung because his lungs had broken down from the abuse. Nearly at death, he asked Jesus to forgive him and was miraculously healed. A senior Jesuit attempted to persuade Rivera to return to Catholicism, but instead was himself persuaded to give Rivera the passport and papers he needed to escape Spain. Afterwards he flew to London and rescued his sister María, a nun, after she nearly died in a convent.Cornerstone Magazine's account
The document exhibited by Rivera to prove his status as a Catholic priest was fraudulently obtained and the Catholic Church denies his claims of having been a Jesuit priest or a bishop. He had only one sister in London; she was not called Maria, was not a nun, and did not live in a convent. In an employment form dated 1963 he claimed marriage to Carmen Lydia Torres, and the couple had two children in the USA when his own account had him a celibate priest in Spain.
Cornerstone also questioned Rivera's claim to various degrees, including three doctorates (Th.D., D.D., and Ph.D.), reporting that his known chronology did not allow enough time for him to have completed these degrees and that he had admitted to receiving them from a Colorado
diploma mill .Allegations against Catholicism and Islam
According to Rivera, Jesuits are responsible for the creation of
communism ,Islam , andNazism , and causing theWorld War s,recession , theJonestown Massacre , and theassassination s ofAbraham Lincoln andJohn F. Kennedy ; he further claims that the Catholic Church wants to spreadhomosexuality andabortion , that theCharismatic Movement is a front for the Catholic Church, that thePope s areantichrist s, that the Catholic Church is theWhore of Babylon , and thatMuhammad was used by the Catholic Church to createIslam and destroy theJew s and other groups ofChristian s.Presence in "Chick Tracts"
Six of Jack Chick's comics feature Rivera specifically: "Alberto", [ [http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0112/albertoindex.asp Chick Publications - Alberto] ] "Double Cross", "The Godfathers", [ [http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0114/godfathersindex.asp Chick Publications - The Godfathers] ] "The Force", "Four Horsemen", and "The Prophet". [ [http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0117/theprophetindex.asp Chick Publications - The Prophet] ] Some people dismiss them out of hand, although Chick also printed a series of counterclaims in reply. Chick's comics and tracts were removed from many
Christian bookstores on the grounds that hisanti-Catholic charges were false and bigoted. Chick then resigned from the Christian Booksellers Association after the CBA began considering whether to expel him. Chick calls Rivera the most godly man he has ever met and claims that the charges against him and Rivera are themselves a plot by the Catholic Church.Death
Rivera's last place of residence and place of death,
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma , were not revealed until after Rivera's death. Chick nowwhen|date=February 2008 saysFact|date=April 2007 that Rivera's body was secretly taken out of Oklahoma and buried in an undisclosed location with a private funeral service out of fear that the Jesuits would exhume his corpse and desecrate it.According to cemetery records, [ [http://www.rootsweb.com/~oktulsa2/cemeteries/rhcri.txt Rose Hill Cemetery records - Tulsa, OK] ] Rivera is buried in an unmarked grave at Rose Hill Cemetery in
Tulsa, Oklahoma .A Mass was celebrated at that spot on the eighth anniversary of Rivera's death,
June 20 ,2005 , the purpose of the Mass being to petition God to have mercy on the man's soul. (The location listed as Rivera's grave had been blessed by a local Roman Catholic priest at an earlier date.) Fact|date=February 2007Jim Arrabito , who interviewed Rivera in 1983, believes that he was murdered.Fact|date=September 2007 The medical report listscolorectal cancer as the cause of death.Fact|date=February 2008References
External links
* [http://www.chick.com/ Chick Publications website] , including comics and other tracts based on Rivera's testimony.
* [http://www.AuthorsDen.com/GaryDaleCearley Web page of author Gary Dale Cearley] , who wrote a book refuting Alberto Rivera's testimony regarding the Vatican and Islam.
* [http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0112/indefense.asp Defense of Alberto Rivera] on Chick's site: presents documents and testimony in support of Rivera's claims.
* [http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p3.asp Catholic Answers To Chick Tracts]Catholic Answers presents documents and testimony challenging Rivera's claims.
* [http://www.spirituallysmart.com/alberto.html Video interviews featuring Dr. Alberto Rivera]
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