HAGåTñA (GUAM)
Pacific Daily News [Hagåtña, Guam]
December 6, 2024
By Joe Taitano II
The Archdiocese of Agaña has published a list of 48 known church associates who have been accused of child sexual abuse in lawsuits filed with Guam courts.
Archbishops, a bishop, priests, lay persons and nuns are among those compiled in the list, which is posted online at: archagana.org/disclosures.
“We treasure our young ones. We nurture and protect them and want them to have confidence that the adults around them will look after their welfare,” Archbishop Ryan Jimenez said in a Friday afternoon statement announcing the list’s posting.
Names were derived from 331 separate lawsuits filed in Superior Court of Guam and District Court of Guam, based on a list compiled by law firm Razzano Walsh & Torres for the archdiocese.
Publication of the list is a requirement of the archdiocese’s settlement of nearly 300 sex abuse lawsuits brought, according to a memo attached to the list.
Any church associate named in any civil suit must be listed, “not just those individuals who have credibly found to have committed abuse,” the law firm memo stated.
Those named range from former Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who was stripped of his position after a Vatican tribunal convicted him of molesting multiple minors in 2019, to simply a “Catholic priest” and “Priest Jim.”
Other notable names include the late former Archbishop of Agaña Felixberto Camacho Flores, and deceased former priest and Boy Scouts of America scoutmaster Louis Brouillard, who admitted to molesting children on Guam before dying at 97.
Accusations filed against Brouillard, a total 191, account for more than half of the full list of 330 compiled in the list published on Friday.
Many of those on the list are dead, notes a letter from Father Romeo Convocar, who was charged by Archbishop Jimenez to close out the archdiocese bankruptcy and the payments to church sex abuse survivors.
While the publication of the names fulfills the church’s settlement, “from the canonical point of view, we are unable to establish with moral certainty whether those crimes were truly committed since most of the accused have long been deceased,” Convocar writes in a letter to Jimenez.
The church has undertaken a review of allegations made against all living individuals named in the lawsuits, in line with processes laid out in Canon Law, Convocar noted.
“Several clerics who are members of religious orders and otherwise connected to Guam were also investigated by their Orders,” he wrote.
Convocar pledged to keep the archbishop informed of any case decided by Rome.
Jimenez, in a news release Friday, said the archdiocese must “never again” allow the vulnerability of the young to be taken advantage of.
He said the archdiocese “will not recommend or place members of the clergy or laypersons in active ministry who have credible claims of sexual abuse pending against them, are undergoing Church or civil proceedings for the same, or are considered unsuitable due to substantiated accusations of sexual misconduct, particularly with minors.”
The archbishop said he would continue to offer private spiritual and professional counseling, and to invite sex abuse survivors to share their testimonies.
“My doors are open, and so is my heart. Our broken Church, through her prayers to God with the intercessory aid of our patroness, Santa Marian Kamalen, asks for healing and pledges to walk in fidelity with the survivors and all concerned to the end when we see God face to face and our tears are no more,” Jimenez said.
Lawmakers in 2016 voted to lift the civil statute of limitation for child sexual abuse, and Guam’s clergy sex abuse claims jumped dramatically afterward.
A review of case numbers compiled in the archdiocese list shows all the accusations included were filed with the courts between 2017 and 2020.
Here is the full list, and the number of accusations brought against each person named:
- “Catholic priest” — 1
- Adrian Loreto Finona Cristobal Jr. — 4
- Andrew Peter Mannetta — 11
- Anthony Sablan Apuron — 12
- Antonio Camacho Cruz — 17
- Antonio Rivera Perez — 1
- Arnold Bendowski — 1
- Daniel Cristobal — 4
- David I.A. Quitugua — 1
- David Joseph Ellington — 1
- David Kenneth Anderson — 2
- Edward Pereira — 5
- Felixberto Camacho Flores — 1
- Fulgence Herbert Francis Petrie — 1
- George Maddock — 3
- Gregory Seubert — 3
- Joe Damian — 1
- John Patrick Niland — 3
- Jose Ada Leon Guerrero — 5
- Jose R. San Agustin — 1
- Juan Leon Guerrero Camacho — 2
- Kieran Hickey — 1
- Lee Michael Gallagher Friel — 2
- Leon Murphy — 1
- Louis Antonelli — 1
- Louis Arnold Brouillard — 191
- Louis Rink — 1
- Mariano Laniyo — 1
- Melanie Trilles — 2
- Michael J. Unpingco — 2
- Miguel Salas — 1
- Paul Sebay — 1
- Pedro Quidachay — 1
- Priest Jim — 2
- Randolph Nowak — 1
- Ray M. Techaira — 1
- Raymond A. Techaira — 2
- Raymond Aquino Florig — 1
- Raymond Caluag — 3
- Raymond Fejeran Cepeda — 20
- Raymond Techaira — 2
- Robert G. Phelps — 1
- Sigmund Hafemann — 1
- Sister Andre Martinez — 1
- Sister Mary Camalin — 1
- Tomas Aguon Camacho — 1
- Vernon T. Kamiaz — 4
- Zoilo Leon Guerrero Camacho — 5
Reach reporter Joe Taitano II at JTaitano@guampdn.com.