GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News July 26, 2016
Nearly two months after the Vatican sent him to temporarily oversee the Catholic Church in Guam, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai will not only hold his first press conference but also confirmed that a revision of the local church’s policy for responding to sexual abuse accusations would include language on how to respond to allegations against the archbishop himself.
Hon’s first press conference set for Wednesday morning also comes five days after his name was included as a defendant in a libel and slander lawsuit filed by former altar boys who accused Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of sexually assaulting them in the late 1970s.
Former altar boys Roy Quintanilla, Walter Denton and Roland Sondia, along with Doris Concepcion, mother of another former altar boy, Joseph Quinata, accused Apuron of sexually molesting altar boys when he was parish priest at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Agat.
Through their attorney David Lujan, the former altar boys revised on Friday their $2 million libel and slander lawsuit, naming other defendants and citing more examples in which the local church allegedly defamed them after they made their allegations against Apuron public.
The accusers said Hon, who has temporarily assumed Apuron’s duties in Guam, should be held equally accountable for past statements by the church because the church has not retracted or repudiated any of the statements.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.