GUAM
Pacific News Center
Written by Donna De Jesus
Guam – A new website has been launched which provides statistical information about alleged sexual abuse of minors by the Catholic Church in 49 countries. It was created and designed to encourage legislation to expand the statute of limitations on sex crimes committed against minors. According to the website’s creator and analyst, G.R. Pafumi, the database took him two and a half years to complete. VictimsSpeakDB.org contains a database of Survivor Accounts of Catholic Clergy Abuse, Denial, Accountability and Silence, or SACCADAS.
“It’s almost like a standardized profile, and it extracts data from the database. It tells you how long it has been since a priest in Guam was reported for abuse, in other words, the diocese knew about it, and when the last time an abuse occurred,” Pafumi explained in a telephone interview with PNC. “Looking at Guam now, there’s almost 60 years between the first report of abuse in 1956 and the last incidence of abuse that I have on the database of 2015. When you put it all together in one page, it paints a pretty ugly picture of the Catholic Church.”
Since the statute of limitations was lifted on Guam, Pafumi was able to identify 14 clergymen in the SACCADAS database. In a phone interview with PNC, Pafumi said he is working on a comprehensive analysis on Guam abuse, and specifically on former priest Father Louis Brouillard. Although, he says since many church records were destroyed before 1950, there could have been more instances of abuse.
“That doesn’t mean that’s all the abuse that’s out there; that’s only the abuse that I have been able to identify. Right now, my database has got 37 records just on Brouillard. He may have been the worst offender in Guam. The real uncertainty is what is the real number of victims who have not come forward, and how many will come forward,” Pafumi said.
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