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Clergy Sex Abuse Survivors in Chuuk, Pohnpei Sought

By Haidee V Eugenio
Pacific Daily News
January 25, 2019

https://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2019/01/24/clergy-sex-abuse-survivors-chuuk-pohnpei/2673587002/

Picketers congregate for a protest against Archbishop Anthony Apuron in front of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagatna on April 30, 2017. (Photo: Frank San Nicolas/PDN)

A law firm representing dozens of Guam clergy sex abuse plaintiffs is now also reaching out to child sexual abuse survivors in Chuuk and Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, from the 1950s to the present.

The law firm of Berman O’Connor & Mann is seeking individuals who may have been victims of sex abuse while a minor and while attending Catholic schools and Catholic parishes in Chuuk and Pohnpei.

Public notices have been placed on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and notices in the FSM may follow, according to Attorney Michael Berman, who represents some three-dozen Guam clergy sex abuse plaintiffs.

At least two priests, now deceased, have been identified by the law firm in potential lawsuits involving cases in Pohnpei and Chuuk.

"The process in the FSM is just beginning," Berman said.

Pohnpei, Chuuk and other FSM residents have moved to Guam throughout the years, under a compact with the United States.

The law firm, part of an affiliation of law firms serving the Pacific including the FSM, listed the following where abuses may have occurred from the 1950s:

Pohnpei or Ponape Agriculture and Trade School in Pohnpei

Pohnpei Catholic School in Pohnpei

Saint Cecilia Catholic School in Weno, Chuuk

Xavier High School in Weno, Chuuk

Any Catholic parishes in Pohnpei and Chuuk from the 1950s to the present

Churches or parishes under the Vicariate of the Caroline and Marshall Islands were transferred to the Vicariate of Guam in the 1940s and a series of decrees later transferred them to others vicariates. Priests also went from one assignment to another between islands.

In May 2016, Concerned Catholics of Guam sponsored full-page newspaper advertisements, urging anyone who had been sexually abused by clergy to come forward.

Months later, Guam lifted the statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse cases. Since 206, more than 200 clergy sex abuse claims have been filed, mostly represented by Attorney David Lujan's law firm. The Archdiocese of Agana is a defendant, along with priests, other clergy and others associated with the Catholic Church.

 

 

 

 

 




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