GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Feb. 8, 2017
A canonical trial, such as the ongoing trial of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, is a highly secretive process with many possible outcomes, according to canon lawyer Patrick J. Wall, who said Apuron will not be at the Vatican for any of the proceedings.
Wall, a former Catholic priest, is lead researcher for Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota-based law firm representing victims of childhood sexual abuse. He is helping to dissect the defenses that dioceses mount during trial. He co-authored “Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes,” a leading book on the 2,000-year history of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis placed Apuron on leave last June after several former altar boys publicly accused Apuron, 71, of molesting or raping them when he was parish priest in Agat, in the 1970s. Only the pope can take action against a bishop or archbishop, and the Vatican has confirmed there is an ongoing canonical trial for Apuron.
“Few people outside of the Vatican know as much about the canonical trial process as Patrick does,” said Joelle Casteix, volunteer western regional director for the Illinois-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, the world’s largest network of clergy abuse survivors.
Wall said Pope Francis has two options in the Apuron trial — administrative action or judicial action — after the pope’s appointed auditor, or investigator, gathers and presents the facts. Wall said a likely candidate to serve as the pope’s auditor is Reverend James Conn, a professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and professor of the Practice of Canon Law at Boston College.
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.