GUAM
The Guardian
May 29, 2020
By Anita Hofschneider
There are now nearly 300 sexual abuse lawsuits against more than 20 priests on the deeply religious island in the western Pacific
Roosters crow in the distance as Walter Denton gestures toward a white one-storey concrete building behind a church in Agat, a village in southern Guam.
“You know, just standing here, right behind you, that is where I was raped,” says Denton, 56.
It has been more than three years since Denton first went public with accusations that Guam’s former archbishop Anthony Apuron assaulted him, and even though he has told the story many times his voice is still heavy with emotion.
Denton says he was 12 or 13 years old and had fallen asleep in the church rectory, where Apuron had asked him to spend the night, and then “woke up screaming,” laying on his stomach with his hands pinned down and Apuron on top of him.
Denton says when the priest finally stopped, he offered to give Denton straight A’s in theology class.
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