(GUAM)
Longview News-Journal [Longview, TX]
April 5, 2022
By Diane Iglesias
Having been a Catholic for at least 50 years, I am very well aware of the “false teachings” that don’t align with the Bible that the Roman Catholic Church has perpetuated for so many years.
I have no issues with Catholics per se, but I have a big problem with their leadership who have been leading their flock down the wrong path, through the wide gate that leads to destruction. (Matthew 7:13-14)
We are all accountable to God, (Romans 14:12), leaders and teachers even more so. (James 3:1)
The RCC has brainwashed its all-too-trusting flock with spoon-fed theology and reverence toward the priests and their higher-ups, particularly the pope, for thousand of years.
Instead of effectively dealing with the “monster” priests they have bred and groomed, they are way more concerned with saving face, a great travesty since they affect the all-important well-being of the victimized child. Their “deny, deny, deny” mantra is their go-to. Only when the evidence is overwhelming do they attempt to deal with any clergy sex abuse claim. It’s “plausible deniability” at its best.
A recent Guam Daily Post article reported that Archbishop Michael Byrnes is asking the Catholic faithful to donate their “assets” to help pay the lawsuit settlement debt to the clergy sex abuse victims, using this “Lenten season of forgiveness” to soften the blow, no less! Talk about adding insult to injury!
Pope Francis has no problem whatsoever throwing his predecessors, Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II, under the proverbial bus, blaming them for not handling the clergy child sex abuse issue adequately. But, hey, there’s more than enough blame to go around.
At the Philadelphia grand jury finding, Archbishop Vigano, Vatican adviser to the U.S., said that in 2013 he told Pope Francis personally about high-ranking priests committing child sex abuse crimes and added that the pope has been covering up clergy sex abuse for years and must resign.
In 2002, the Boston Globe newspaper did an exposé on child sex abuse scandals involving quite a few priests and their higher-ups in the Boston Archdiocese. The most infamous one was John Geoghan, accused of committing a child sex abuse spree for three decades (1965-1995). More than 130 victims, almost always grammar school boys, with one just 4 years old, alleged that he either fondled or raped them. When these crimes were reported to then-Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, he shuffled him from parish to parish, a “geographical solution.” This was under Popes Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II’s papacy. Scandalized, Law resigned that same year.
His reward: Pope John Paul II called him to Rome to serve as archpriest of St. Mary Major, a prestigious position entitling him to burial at one of Rome’s more important and beautiful basilicas, according to information from the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI retired in 2013, the first resignation in 600 years. Not taking clergy accountability for the systemic child sex abuse and its cover-up, he blamed the sexual revolution of the ’60s.
The Archdiocese of Agana has its own share of clergy child sex abuse woes. In 2016, the Vatican suspended Archbishop Apuron, who had led the diocese for 30 years. Archbishop Hon temporarily replaced him pending further investigation. Hon made a bad judgment call, urging the Catholic faithful to veto Bill 326, stressing that the potential lawsuits would cause the Archdiocese of Agana to have to file bankruptcy. Prioritizing the archdiocese assets over the physical, emotional and mental well-being of clergy sex abuse victims was a very costly mistake. Gov. Eddie Calvo signed the bill into law, lifting the statute of limitations, allowing victims to be able to sue their abusers.
What started as a trickle became a virtual tsunami of claimants. Co-adjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes, appointed to replace Hon, arrived in November 2016. In March 2017, accusers testified against Apuron in a Vatican tribunal. In March 2018, Apuron, who was found guilty by a Vatican tribunal, appealed. In August 2018, Pope Francis said he would personally handle Apuron’s appeal.
In April 2019, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rejected Apuron’s appeal, upholding its judgment that found the former Guam archbishop guilty of sexually abusing minors.