GUAM
Pacific Daily News
January 11, 2018
By Haidee V Eugenio
Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s nephew, Mark M. Apuron, Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court, accusing the archbishop of raping him when he was a teen, in 1989 or 1990.
It’s the fifth lawsuit accusing Archbishop Apuron of sexually abusing or raping boys, and the first to accuse him of doing so after he had been elevated to the position of archbishop. The other four lawsuits allege Apuron abused Agat altar boys in the late 1970s, when he was parish priest in that village.
Apuron became Guam’s archbishop in 1986, and has been the subject of a Vatican canonical trial since 2016. The trial, which will determine whether Apuron remains a member of the clergy, started after the former Agat altar boys publicly accused him of assaulting them.
A decision in the canonical trial was reached in October 2017, according to new Archbishop Michael Byrnes, who this week said the Vatican has not yet stated the outcome. As coadjutor archbishop for Guam, Byrnes has the right to succeed Apuron.
Mark Apuron’s lawsuit states he was raped in the archbishop’s bathroom at the chancery during a religious event in 1989 or 1990, when he was around the age of 15 or 16.
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