SNAP to Guam church: Stop fighting accusers in civil courts

By Haidee V Eugenio
Pacific Daily News
July 8, 2017

http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2017/07/08/snap-guam-church-stop-fighting-accusers-civil-courts/454483001/

Joelle Casteix

The world's largest group of clergy sex abuse survivors said Thursday the only way the Archdiocese of Agana can now make amends is to stop fighting accusers in the civil courts.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, said making amends now also means cooperating completely with civil authorities, and turning over and making public all evidence of child sex abuse and cover-up in the church's secret personnel files. 

Joelle Casteix, volunteer western regional leader for SNAP, was responding to Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes' declaration of the Year of Reparationfor the Catholic Church on Guam.

"The laity of the Archdiocese of Agana has already showed tremendous solidarity with victims by standing with them, believing them, praying for them, protesting outside of the cathedral, and demanding transparency and accountability from Archdiocesan leadership and the Vatican," Casteix said in a statement.

Casteix said Byrnes must stop putting the burden of amends on the laity because that burden must sit squarely on the shoulders of church officials and their attorneys.

"Prayers are for those without the immediate power to enact change. Coadjutor Byrnes has the immediate power to enact change in the courts, open files, stop wrongdoing, and hold those who committed or covered up child sex abuse accountable," Casteix wrote.

Byrnes declared a "Year of Reparation" because of the magnitude of clergy sexual abuses and outbreaks of violence, child abuse, drug abuse and the highest divorce rate in the world, among other things, on Guam.

Guam's Catholic Church is facing 82 lawsuits in federal and local courts — 78 of them involving alleged rape and sexual abuse by priests and other clergy.