GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News July 29, 2017
The ongoing canonical trial of Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron is significant in that it’s only the second time in centuries a bishop has been put on trial by the church, said Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest and former board member of the Canon Law Society of America.
The last archbishop to undergo a canonical trial — Jozef Wesołowski, who was accused of sexually abusing children in the Dominican Republic — was defrocked in 2014.
“It’s very, very rare, and the reason it’s rare is because the Vatican or the popes have protected the bishops. They consider them to be the most important part of the church, so they protect them, no matter what they’ve done,” Doyle said. “As a result, the bishops have gotten away with both sexually abusing children and promoting the sexual abuse of children by allowing priests, who they knew were abusive persons, to carry on repeat sexual abuse.”
There have been 95 cases filed in federal and local court on Guam, accusing priests and others associated with the church of child sexual abuse, including several cases which allege some children reported the abuse to other church officials who didn’t help them.
If the accusations are true, Guam’s last three bishops and archbishops, including Apuron, sexually abused children or knew about clergy sexual abuse on island and did nothing to stop it.
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