WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
July 1, 2019
By Cindy Wooden
The first time Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes of Agana, Guam, celebrated Mass in his cathedral, he had to cross a picket line to do so.
Australian Archbishop Peter A. Comensoli of Melbourne said Catholics in his archdiocese are angry.
The two were among 30 archbishops from 25 nations who received their palliums — woolen stoles — from Pope Francis June 29.
In interviews with Catholic News Service before the Mass, both archbishops spoke of the impact of clerical sexual abuse on the people of their dioceses and said survivors are the members of their flocks most in need of care.
The first week of August, both Archbishop Byrnes and Archbishop Comensoli will celebrate their first anniversaries as archbishop of their dioceses. For both archdioceses, it has been a year of coming face-to-face with the abuse crisis.
Archbishop Byrnes was an auxiliary bishop of Detroit when Pope Francis sent him to Guam in October 2016 as the coadjutor bishop with special powers in the midst of accusations of sexual abuse and financial mismanagement against Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron.
The appointment “was a little overwhelming,” the archbishop said. Guam was far away and Catholics there were in an uproar.
Meeting Pope Francis before he went to Guam for the first time, he said he told the pope that when a sports team is doing badly, the important thing is to return to the fundamentals and that’s what he planned to do in Guam: “Being friends with Jesus Christ.”
But “my first meeting when I arrived in Guam was with lawyers,” he said. “At that time we had six complaints of sexual abuse of minors and to date over 230 victims have come forward — it’s a lot for a small island.”
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