Drawing Aside the Purple Curtain

The Papal System Today: an Analysis of the News

THE ALBERTO RIVERA STORY

Fact and Fantasy Compared – Forty Years of Fraud

by Roy Livesey

Introduction by Shaun Willcock

Alberto Rivera is the principal character in the “Alberto” series of picture books, published by Chick
Publications in California. They claim to be based upon the life story of a man who said he was an ex-
Jesuit priest converted to Christ, and on other information about Roman Catholicism and the Jesuits
which he supplied. When asked to make a statement concerning the validity of his supposed life story,
Rivera published a declaration that what was written by “JTC” (Jack T. Chick) was “a true and actual
account.”
But this was a lie. And although this lie was exposed to some extent by others before him, Roy
Livesey carried out the most extensive and thorough research of all into the life and claims of Alberto
Rivera. His research revealed that Rivera was never a Jesuit priest, but a fraud and a deceiver.
Sadly, although Rivera died in 1997 his false message continues to be promoted across the world, via
the Chick comic books as well as via the many who believed him and continue to do so. And those
who seek to expose him are branded as “Jesuit agents” or Vatican stooges, the very tactic which Rivera
used, and one which the gullible are only too willing to emulate.
As Livesey writes in the preface to his short biography entitled Alberto Rivera: “Alberto” Comic
Book Con Man (2005): “Surely Rivera must have been the most consistently successful deceiver the
Church has known. After some forty years of deceiving readers and international audiences, Rivera
died in 1997 without ever having been stopped in his tracks.... Unfortunately there have been too many
undiscerning Protestants and evangelicals ready to be persuaded by our con man and agent
provocateur. Alberto Rivera could only exaggerate and hinder the truth; and truth is essential if God is
to be honoured and the Protestant cause not hindered.”

The following article is reprinted from Roy Livesey’s New Age Bulletin, Vol III, No 4, November
1991. It is a concise summary of his research. His booklet entitled Alberto Rivera: “Alberto” Comic
Book Con Man, was published by Bury House Christian Books, Kidderminster, England, in 2005. It
was based on his complete biography of Rivera, a very comprehensive and as-yet unpublished
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manuscript, entitled Alberto Rivera: the True Story. Perhaps this excellent exposé could yet be
published.
It must be borne in mind that Roy Livesey exposes Rivera’s fantasies in the article below, but this is
by no means to say that many of the things Rivera describes have not indeed occurred, or that they are
not occurring still. Rivera said many true things about Rome, gleaned from various reliable sources, or
he would not have been able to deceive so many for so long. But Livesey’s purpose is to show that
Rivera was never a Jesuit priest, and that he fabricated many things about Rome to sensationalise his
“life story”.
Also, it must be pointed out that some of those who have written exposés of Rivera in the past, and
the publications in which these have appeared, are not doctrinally sound and we do not recommend
them for doctrine in any way. But men may carry out good factual research regardless of their
personal beliefs. Rivera branded all such researchers as Jesuit agents, and sadly many who continue to
believe his message follow him in this tactic; but it does not automatically follow that every man who
has exposed Rivera is an agent of Rome whose research is faulty! Evidence is evidence, and shooting
the messenger just because his message is not to their liking does not make the evidence disappear.

The Alberto Rivera* Story

*** Jim Jones, Jim Bakker... Alberto Rivera.
*** Rivera pretends he was Jesuit Priest who learned Vatican secrets.
*** He teaches a false history supposedly learned in the Vatican.
*** His message reaches millions through best-selling picture books.
*** His financial frauds continue after nearly forty years.
*** He is known world-wide and living in Southern California.
*** The incredible story of money and religious fraud.
*** The fact of Rivera’s life is as extraordinary as his fantasy.
*** An epic story as extraordinary as any film or fiction?

Fact and Fantasy Compared – Forty Years of Fraud

(a sample of two years’ research worldwide)

The fantasy is of Rivera as a Jesuit Priest, destroying Protestant churches and seminaries, and
eventually made privy to extraordinary Roman Catholic history and Vatican secrets no historians have
ever uncovered. The fact is we discovered forty years of Rivera’s fable, false testimony and fraud.

1942
The fantasy starts with Alberto, a seven year old in the Canary Islands (Spain), beginning his studies
to be a priest. Millions of best-selling picture books have gone out from Chick Publications, Chino,
California, telling his story. The fact is the story is untrue.

1949-51
Rivera’s fantasy includes homosexual interference with him by priests in his Jesuit school, tales of
tunnels connecting monasteries and convents, with places for disposing of the bodies of babies. Rivera
tells of one visit from his Jesuit school to the Salesian monastery working with orphans. His friend fell
in a ditch and the pictures from “The Force” relate more of the scurrilous story. Rivera has told some
that he attended the Salesian school.* According to the picture book he attended the Jesuit school.*
Neither school has any trace of him. Nor was there a Salesian monastery, only a school. The fact is,
according to Rivera’s elder sister*, he never attended any kind of religious school.

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1952-55
Rivera was, according to his fantasy, destroying Protestant seminaries and churches in Spain. Our
photograph shows the fact of a very youthful Rivera, Bible in hand, in the Canary Islands when a
member of a Protestant church during this period. As to education, whilst most future Jesuit priests
were getting an education, Rivera became a fare collector. Here we found his first frauds against the
local bus company in Las Palmas.

A Jesuit infiltrator?

1955
Rivera went for further education to a seminary in Costa Rica. The fact is that he was sent by the
Canary Island Protestant church. The photograph shows him about to leave by ship with another
young church member, Plutarco Bonilla*. Rivera’s fantasy is that he was serving the Jesuits and he
helped destroy the seminary.

About to board ship to Venezuela, en

route to Costa Rica, with Plutarco Bonilla
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1955-57
One fantasy at the seminary is that two beautiful girls were assigned to
him, as depicted in the comic book “Alberto.” Alongside we show a
portrait of Rivera in 1956. Another fantasy is that Rivera occasioned a
hunger strike to serve Rome and bring the seminary into disrepute. The
fact is, according to Plutarco Bonilla, Rivera was involved with none of
this. In 1957 Rivera was expelled for lying and for breaking seminary
rules.

1957
Another fantasy is that Rivera was ordained as a Catholic priest in Costa
Rica. The fact is, after Rivera was expelled from the Protestant
seminary*, he sought the sympathy of the Methodist Church and began
work with them. A bad report from his Methodist superior* is in hand
also.
Fact: 1956 – Rivera at the Seminary
1965
Chick’s picture book fantasy finds Rivera in 1965 as a Jesuit priest in Guatemala exposing Rome to a
crowd of 50,000. We see him arrested by the Roman Catholic authorities and eventually taken to
Barcelona, Spain, to a Roman Catholic asylum for priests who have gone insane. In fact Rivera was in
Hoboken, New Jersey, El Paso, Texas and Mexico. In Hoboken he worked for the Christian Reformed
Church, he had a wife Lydia, and they had a child Juan of a few months old. His supervisor* tells us
his work and behaviour were unsatisfactory. He was dismissed from the church. He left debts unpaid.
Rivera and Lydia travelled via El Paso into Mexico. A Christian minister’s* report from there shows
how Rivera was still exploiting people.

Catholic or Protestant in 1967?

Another fantasy is of Rivera getting converted to Christ and miraculously escaping from an iron lung
in the insane asylum. The fact is that Rivera was working as the Director of a Protestant School* in
the same Spanish city. He was soon dismissed, whereupon he went to the nearby Roman Catholic
parish* of San Lorenzo complaining of persecution by the Protestants. He swindled the Protestants,
and now he was swindling Catholics in a poor part of the city. Rivera also swindled a Roman Catholic
school.* Apart from the financial fraud, now living in a Catholic monastery, he also equipped himself
with false Roman Catholic papers and attire. In his new robes he returned on a money-raising visit to
his native Canary Islands, telling the local newspaper* he had been ordained as a Roman Catholic
priest in Costa Rica. Neither converted to Protestantism nor converted to Roman Catholicism, 1967
was in fact another year of financial swindles. Such are the facts. Alberto’s true history has repeated
itself. The extraordinary facts of 1967 are as remarkable as the fantasy of the picture books.

Twisting the Facts

Rivera’s fantasy of a Vatican plot against him extends to his visit to a dentist. Evidencing his normal
paranoia, two pages of pictures and detail in “Double-Cross” tell how the dentist “purposely” left him
open to infection and death. The fact is that the dental procedures Rivera describes are normal dental
practice. The inside-front cover in all the picture books displays Rivera’s printed credentials and we
are invited to the wrong conclusions just like the visit to the dentist. His Spanish I.D. card describes
Rivera as a priest, and he is wearing a Roman collar. The address is that of the Roman Catholic church
of San Lorenzo, Barcelona, after his dismissal by the Protestant church. Rivera’s priesthood is a
fantasy. The fact is there was no formality to stop anyone describing himself as a priest, or as anything
else, on an I.D. card in 1967. Yet another fantasy pictured on the inside-cover is of Rivera supposedly
as Director of the Parish School in San Lorenzo. The fact is there was no Parish School in San
Lorenzo.

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 A normal Spanish I.D. card. Rivera was a national of Spain

Alberto’s Sister in London

In the same year, 1967, Rivera flies to London. He discovers his sister, Maria, in a convent there. His
fantasy is that her dress was blood-soaked, dried, and stiff from bleeding ulcers on her back after
flagellation. After the arrival of the Metropolitan Police, he carries his sister away to safety. Where is
Maria today? In 1991 Rivera hadn’t seen his family for many years and we read in “Double-Cross”:
“Dr Rivera believes she is either dead or suffering in another convent.” A new picture book, published
in Korea in 1990, tells us that Maria was martyred by Roman Catholics. Such is the fantasy. Deluded
members of Rivera’s church wept real tears with him upon hearing his story of her death. Such is the
tragedy. Yet the fact is that in 1991 Maria is alive.

Rivera – Wanted!
By 1968, supposedly now converted, Rivera is in Tennessee, no longer pretending as a Roman
Catholic priest, but cheating a Protestant
denomination, and many good people who
helped him. Soon he is swindling people
in Florida and we find him wanted by
police there for theft of a credit card and
an automobile from church people. Back
with Lydia again, and with another infant
Luis Marx, a few months old, we soon
lose trace of Luis Marx. With car and
credit card, Rivera and Lydia leave for
Washington State where Rivera preaches
at Revival meetings. The pastors in
Seattle, Washington, got word from
Florida that they had a fraud amongst
them. A bank official from the Barnett
Bank in DeLand, Florida,* and a
Lieutenant of DeLand Police
Department,* were after him, but Rivera
smartly escaped them all.

Names, Titles and Degrees

Rivera uses the style of a bishop. It is
probably a fantasy that he was ever a
bishop in the Old Roman Catholic Church
as the Alberto book tells us. The fact is
there is a letter from the Archbishop and Alberto Rivera is WANTED!

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Metropolitan* which states that Rivera most certainly has never been ordained into the Old Roman
Catholic Church. As to academic matters, the fact is that Rivera is a man of poor education. Rivera’s
fantasy is that he holds doctorates in Philosophy, Theology, Sociology, History and Bible. Rivera’s
Birth Certificate identifies his only names as Alberto Rivera Romero. That is the fact. Rivera’s
fantasy adds a new name, Magno. In English it is translated as magnificent. His printed card shows a
coat of arms, a Latin inscription, and his name: “Alberto Magno R. Rivera, DT, DD, ND, NRH –
Bishop.”

Two Different False Stories

Rivera produced an account of his life on a Spanish phonograph record, “From Rome to Christ.” He
deceives Hispanics across the American continent with it. The record is different from the picture
book testimonies, yet both are false. Eventually the six 32-page picture books Jack Chick* produced
from 1979 to 1988 were to abound with Rivera’s fables. His so-called comic books are anything but
comic. Powerfully persuasive, the Alberto series, like the picture books based upon John Todd before
Rivera, and the stories from Rebecca Brown and Elaine since, contains much fantasy. Rivera is not
who he says he is, yet sales and distribution are on a vast scale and millions of readers, attracted by the
powerful graphic sensationalism, neither versed in history nor the detailed workings of Roman
Catholicism, come to believe Rivera’s fiction and falsehoods.

Chick Promotes New History

By 1988, because of the Chick picture books, Rivera is widely known in Christian circles throughout
the world. His passports to ever more speaking engagements have been the Chick books. The later
ones have progressively given less space to Rivera’s personal story and more to the new history Rivera
supposedly learned when given access as a Jesuit Priest to the secret archives of the Vatican. It seems
likely that among all the publications against Roman Catholicism, nothing has ever had a circulation as
large as these picture books. They oppose Rome with startling examples of false history. We are told
Roman Catholics were responsible for founding Islam. Such dangerous deceptions are also promoted
through 22-page picture tracts. Chick Publications, with a range which includes some good material,
are almost certainly the largest Christian tract publishers in the world, claiming a production of
100,000 per day. One of their latest, “The Deceived,” relates how Vatican spies were on the lookout
for a potential leader of the new religion. The fantasy is that at long last they found a brilliant youth
named Mohammed. The source of it all is Alberto Rivera, a man identified with forty years of fraud.

1991 – The Tightening of the Net

This year sees a turning of the tide against Rivera. It is time for him to be stopped. The research into
Rivera’s life and background is substantially completed. There is material enough for several books
and several films. On 21st August 1991, Carlos Orea*, a former elder of Rivera’s church, interviewed
outside Los Angeles Municipal Court, was heard by millions on the main KABC-TV News: “I
discover he’s an impostor. He’s a liar. He’s in the church because – money.” Ismael Guerrero*, a
medical doctor and former elder who served Rivera for three years, gave evidence at Rivera’s trial, and
was also heard by the TV viewers. He said Rivera was “...getting a lot of Christians that are in a
vulnerable state. And he will draw money from you because you think you’re helping this super
cause.” Carlos Orea and Donald Blanton*, another former member, were the plaintiffs. The
photographs were taken when Rivera conducted Donald Blanton’s wedding. Ismael Guerrero was best
man. Three years later the men were photographed outside the court room at Rivera’s trial. The
question before the court was “money” – a key in the Alberto Rivera story. The judge found against
Rivera. He said Rivera hides behind high-sounding titles to take money from people who believe in
his cause.

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Rivera’s Members – 1988; L to R: Mrs Nury Rivera Rivera’s Plaintiffs – 1991; L to R: Ismael Guerrero, MD;
(Rivera’s wife); a guest; Grace (bride); Donald Blanton; Donald Blanton; Carlos Orea; Dr Dino Badaracco
Albertito (Rivera’s son); Mrs Bertha Guerrero; Ismael (C.E.L.E.M. – Latin American Ministers’ Committee
Guerrero, MD; Alberto Rivera. On Ethics)

Conclusion
In a meeting with the Director of KABC-TV News after the programme, Roy Livesey was told:
“There is more than one story here.” How right the Director is. Rivera promotes the fantasies of his
past exploits as a Jesuit, yet the facts of his personal frauds, the mystery of his wife and children, the
truth of the past forty years, is just as fantastic. Rivera’s personal financial deceptions continue
unabated. The false history is in the long term even more sinister and dangerous.

As the TV News chief observed, there are several different stories in the Rivera saga. The research is
done. Documentation is in hand. The script is complete. More than enough is available for a film and
for a large book.

Where other attempts to stop Rivera have failed, the Church can pray that this time there may be
success. There is biblical warrant for Christians to act (Ephesians 5:11; 2 Corinthians 4:1-2; Titus
1:10-11). Books and films are not the only way to stop Rivera. Some have observed that except he be
locked up, there is no way at all to stop him. However, his extraordinary influence could be
substantially curtailed by both a film and a book. Indeed it is necessary to think in these terms if
adequate warning is to be sounded – a warning to reach the millions who have been, and will be,
misled.

However, we can thank God for the exposés of Rivera which have appeared in print this far, and these
include the following: (1) Cornerstone Magazine – 1981 (Chicago, Ill.) – the original work by Gary
Metz; (2) Christianity Today 13 March 1981, pp 50-53, “Jack Chick’s Anti-Catholic Alberto Comic
Book is Exposed as a Fraud,” by Gary Metz; (3) The Alberto Story by Gary Metz (1981); (4) Forward
(The News and Research Periodical of the Christian Research Institute – Volume Four; Number Two)
“Alberto – The Truth About His Story” by Brian Onken (1983); (5) Journal of Pastoral Practice (Ed:
Jay E. Adams), Special Report by Kurt Goedelman: “The Alberto Phenomenon”, Vol 5, No 2, 1981,
pp 83-88; (6) Take a Closer Look (Concerned Christians Growth Ministries, Inc – Western Australia –
Jan, Feb, March, April 1988).

We are also grateful to those who have related their experiences to the research team. Where an
asterisk (*) is shown, names, addresses and telephone numbers are available. However these will be
given to enquirers only where appropriate.

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 The titles of the Chick Alberto picture books, all authored by JTC (Jack Chick), are: “Alberto”
(1979); “Double-Cross” (1981); “The Godfathers” (1982); “The Force” (1983); “The Four
Horsemen” (1985); “The Prophet” (1988). All are available from Chick Publications, P.O. Box 662,
Chino, CA 91708-0662. Other different Alberto picture book titles, not in the English language, are
published overseas. Some Chick titles are also available in foreign languages.

Originally published in November 1991; republished in this article format April 2014

Roy Livesey has authored many books exposing the New Age Movement and other deceptions. This
article first appeared in the New Age Bulletin, Vol III, No 4, November 1991, published by Roy and
Rae Livesey, Kidderminster, England. The bulletin is no longer published. Permission was given for
it to be freely copied and quoted.
The only editing that has been done to this article has been the addition of the photo on the front page,
and the removal of some illustrations reproduced from the Chick comic books, which in turn
necessitated a very slight change to the wording relating to one of these. For these illustrations the
reader is referred to the comics themselves.
Note: although we have retained the asterisks used by Roy Livesey to indicate that he had names,
addresses and phone numbers available for documentation, the article was written many years ago and
we do not have access to these; however, Bible Based Ministries does have available for purchase a
documentation package, compiled by Donald R. Blanton, which contains firsthand accounts of people
who worked with Rivera, copies of court records showing he made fraudulent loans and swindled
money, etc.

Bible Based Ministries

info@biblebasedministries.co.uk
www.biblebasedministries.co.uk

This article may be copied for free distribution if it is copied in full

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