Cardinal Roger Mahony was deposed Saturday in a lawsuit over a fugitive ex-priest suspected of molesting as many as 26 children in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Mahony's closed-door deposition was about Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera, who fled the country in 1988 as he was being investigated on multiple charges of sexual abuse, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

Attorney Anthony De Marco is suing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on behalf of one of Aguilar Rivera's alleged victims. The now-defrocked priest is believed to be hiding in Mexico.