"Having Nightmares to This Day': Former Barrigada Altar Boy Sues for Priest's Sex Abuses

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert
Pacific Daily News
January 9, 2020

https://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2020/01/08/former-altar-boy-priest-sex-abuse-catholic-church-lawsuit/2841943001/

Brouillard (Photo: Contributed by USATODAY Network)

Some 40 years after he said a priest raped and molested him several times, a former Barrigada altar boy is now suing the entities that he thinks enabled and then covered up the abuses.

To this day, he continues to have nightmares of being sexually abused by the priest, the lawsuit says.

Father Louis Brouillard allegedly raped and molested him in or about 1977 to 1979, according to the $5 million lawsuit filed in local court Wednesday.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents only with the initials D.E.F. to protect his privacy, said Brouillard sexually abused him at least twice a week for about three to four months.

"While D.E.F. hates Pale for the abuse he suffered, D.E.F.'s faith in God remains stalwart," the lawsuit says. "These experiences have haunted D.E.F. who had bad nightmares, to this day, of being sexually abused by Pale."

At the time, D.E.F. said he was a minor serving as an altar boy at the San Vicente Church in Barrigada and a member of the Boy Scouts of American under Brouillard's leadership.

He said the priest sexually abused him on church grounds and during scouting activities. After scouting events, the priest would take the scouts for treats at restaurants "as a reward for the sexual acts Pale perpetrated on the altar boys and scouts," the lawsuit says.

D.E.F. is represented by attorney David Lujan in his lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, Capuchin Franciscans, and dozen more unnamed defendants.

D.E.F. is the latest plaintiff in Guam's estimated 280 clergy sex abuse lawsuits, which the parties have been trying to settle. The Archdiocese of Agana has yet to settle any claim and filed for bankruptcy last year, while the Boy Scouts, Capuchin Franciscans and Sisters of Mercy have started settling a number of claims.

Reporter Haidee Eugenio Gilbert covers Guam's Catholic church issues, government, business and more. Follow her on Twitter @haidee_eugenio.