Deacon: Archbishop maintained, now ‘protected’ by broken sex abuse policy

GUAM
Guam Daily Post

[with video]

Deacon Steve Martinez, a former sexual abuse response coordinator with the Archdiocese of Agaña, held a press conference on Wednesday, June 1, at Guam Law Library, to discuss his concerns that Archbishop Anthony Apuron kept in place a sex abuse policy that is no longer in favor among other archdiocese in order to protect himself. Martinez, who currently serves as a deacon with the Archdiocese of Agaña, was relieved of his position as SARC in October 2014 after sending at least two letters to Archbishop Anthony Apuron, alerting him a conflict of interest in church policies as well as the archbishop’s failure to comply with policy. Martinez states that Apuron “purposely kept his sex abuse policies weak in order to protect himself and those around him.” The archbishop has been publicly accused by two people this month of sexual abuse while he served as a parish priest in Agat in the 1970s. Tony Azios/Post

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