GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Feb. 25, 2017
Besides adopting a national charter for protecting young people from clergy sexual abuses, Guam’s Catholic Church now also seeks legal background checks for all its adult ministers and volunteers to help prevent future abuses.
The church also now requires all rites and masses to be celebrated in accordance with the Vatican’s general instructions unless they can show proof of exemptions from Rome by March 1, the beginning of the Lenten season.
The Rev. Paul A.M. Gofigan, rector of the Dulce Nombre De Maria Cathedral-Basilica, issued a two-pronged Feb. 14 memo on background checks and unifying the church.
Gofigan asks all current and future adult ministers or volunteers having close contact with minors, at any level, to sign a waiver allowing the cathedral-basilica to perform a legal background check. He said this is not a credit check but is essentially a police clearance.
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