Former Archbishop Robert Sanchez dies

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Former Archbishop Robert Sanchez, the nation's first Hispanic archbishop, died early Friday afternoon.

Sanchez, 77, was the country's youngest archbishop when he was named in 1974 to lead the 275,000 Roman Catholics in New Mexico.

He also became a controversial figure as sex and child-abuse scandals engulfed the church in the 1990s.

Sanchez had been living in an Albuquerque assisted-living center and was afflicted with dementia, the friend said.

"As Archbishop Sanchez got sick, he reiterated his love and blessings always for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, her priests, people and his family," the Sanchez family said in a statement released to the news media.

His family was present when he died shortly after noon, Archbishop Michael Sheehan, Sanchez's successor, said.

He served as archbishop until 1993 when, at the peak of the scandal involving pedophile priests in the state, he admitted having affairs with women parishioners.

"I can and do ask for your forgiveness, as I have of my God," he said at the time in a handwritten statement.

Sanchez was born in Socorro in 1934, ordained in 1959 and at one time served as a priest at San Felipe de Neri Catholic Church in Albuquerque's Old Town.

In 1982, during Sanchez's tenure, New Mexico was divided into the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and the Archdiocese of Las Cruces.

Later in the day the Archdiocese of Santa Fe announced funeral arrangements for services to take place Wednesday and Thursday at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi near the Santa Fe:

Wednesday, Jan. 25

• 10 a.m.  Rite of Reception of the Body
• 11 a.m.  Public visitation until vigil service
• 6 p.m.  Rosary and vigil service
• 7 p.m.  Public visitation continues

Thursday, Jan. 26

• 10 a.m.  Mass of Christian Burial
• Afternoon  Private internment

Sanchez's death revived reminders of the scandal that enveloped the Catholic Church as a whole and in particular the Archdiocese of Santa Fe over the sexual abuse of boys by priests.

Starting in the 1960s the church quietly sent troubled priests to a retreat center in the Jemez Mountains where they were ostensibly treated for their pedophelia but then often assigned to small New Mexico parishes where more abuse was reported.

In a court deposition, Sanchez acknowledged knowing of more than 20 such cases when he was archbishop but doing nothing about them.

He thought of the sexual abuse of a child not as a crime but as a moral infraction by the priest, he said.

A church attorney described Sanchez as being naive about the situation rather than trying to cover up a crime.

By the time the deposition was released, Sanchez had resigned but not left the priesthood.  It later was revealed he was working in Alaska.

An international support group for victims of clergy abuse release a statement Friday saying Catholic officials in New Mexico and Alaska still owe their flocks explanations and apologies for letting Sanchez continue to work.

The group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also criticized Sheehan for not reaching out to the victims in his statement on Sanchez's death..