VATICAN CITY
ABC News
By NICOLE WINFIELD, ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY — Jun 6, 2016
Pope Francis on Monday named a special administrator for the Catholic Church on the Pacific island of Guam after its archbishop was accused of sexually abusing young boys and of keeping church abuse policies weak to protect himself.
The archdiocese of Agana in the U.S. territory said last week it had hired a law firm and independent investigator to look into the allegations against Archbishop Anthony Apuron and how abuse cases were handled by his church.
On Monday, Francis named Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, currently the No. 2 official in the Vatican’s mission office, as “apostolic administrator” for Agana. Apostolic administrators are often named to run dioceses or archdioceses temporarily before a new archbishop is named.
Apuron, who remains in his post, has vigorously denied allegations he sexually abused an altar boy and a now-deceased son of an Arizona woman in the 1970s. The allegations came to the fore last week after a church deacon accused Apuron of purposely keeping the archdioceses’ sexual abuse policy weak to protect himself.
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