Website Launched Containing Database of Child Sex Abusers

By Donna De Jesus
Pacific News Center
April 28, 2017

http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/local/13430

A quantitative analyst has put up a website that details alleged child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members covering six continents, in order to encourage legislation to expand the statute of limitations on sex crimes committed against minors.

Guam - A new website has been launched which provides statistical information about alleged sexual abuse of minors by the Catholic Church in 49 countries. It was created and designed to encourage legislation to expand the statute of limitations on sex crimes committed against minors. According to the website’s creator and analyst, G.R. Pafumi, the database took him two and a half years to complete. VictimsSpeakDB.org contains a database of Survivor Accounts of Catholic Clergy Abuse, Denial, Accountability and Silence, or SACCADAS.

"It’s almost like a standardized profile, and it extracts data from the database. It tells you how long it has been since a priest in Guam was reported for abuse, in other words, the diocese knew about it, and when the last time an abuse occurred," Pafumi explained in a telephone interview with PNC. "Looking at Guam now, there’s almost 60 years between the first report of abuse in 1956 and the last incidence of abuse that I have on the database of 2015. When you put it all together in one page, it paints a pretty ugly picture of the Catholic Church."

Since the statute of limitations was lifted on Guam, Pafumi was able to identify 14 clergymen in the SACCADAS database. In a phone interview with PNC, Pafumi said he is working on a comprehensive analysis on Guam abuse, and specifically on former priest Father Louis Brouillard. Although, he says since many church records were destroyed before 1950, there could have been more instances of abuse.

"That doesn’t mean that’s all the abuse that’s out there; that’s only the abuse that I have been able to identify. Right now, my database has got 37 records just on Brouillard. He may have been the worst offender in Guam. The real uncertainty is what is the real number of victims who have not come forward, and how many will come forward," Pafumi said.

Pafumi says very few Catholic priests have been accused of molesting children today, but as far as his data records go, Brouillard has the most accusations against him, followed by the late Antonio Cruz, Archbishop Anthony Apuron, Raymond Cepeda, and Saipan Bishop Tomas Camacho. In February, canon lawyer Cardinal Raymond Burke met with a couple of the victims to hear their testimonies, which Pafumi says was surprising considering the amount of abuse cases all over the world.

"This escalation or explosion of lawsuits has caught the attention of the pope more than any other place in America as far as I can see. I have not seen the pope put somebody at the level of Cardinal Burke getting involved in this particular situation. It was really quite surprising that the pope, with all the problems he’s having with is pontifical commission, managed to get someone at the level of Cardinal Burke to Guam," Pafumi stated.

You can view Guam's SACCADAS abuse profile by clicking on the attachment below.