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| Archbishop Anthony Apuron of Guam |
The Vatican is nothing if not inconsistent.
The Catholic Archbishop of the US island territory of Guam, Anthony Apuron, has been convicted by a Vatican tribunal, upholding an earlier guilty verdict by an earlier tribunal, of sexually abusing three underaged boys but is to be allowed to retain his archbishop title.
By contrast, (former) Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, was stripped of his title and defrocked for similar offences, and Cardinal Pell, sentenced to 6 years in prison by an Australian court for sexually abusing minors, has been presumed innocent by the Vatican, pending his appeal.
Apuron has been forbidden to return to his native Guam and has been removed from office. He had been head of the Catholic Church in Guam for some 30 years. He has been replaced by Archbishop Michael Byrnes, a former assistant bishop of Detroit.
The Guam archdiocese has sued for bankruptcy to protect it funds from the numerous lawsuits it is now facing from abuse victims.
His replacement, Archbishop Byrne said:
As a church, what we can do in all cases of this kind is to forthrightly acknowledge sin to mete out penance and punishment of the sinner for his own salvation. On our part, we’ll do everything in our power to ensure that this horrible harm inflicted to the innocent is never repeated.
I extend our deepest apologies to the local men and their families who suffered irreparable harm by Anthony Apuron in the past.
Presumably, allowing an abuser to keep his title and retire on a full pension will ensure this 'horrible harm inflicted to the innocent' is never repeated.
Meanwhile, the Catholic world still awaits the outcome from February's emergency meeting of senior clerics at the Vatican to decide on a plan of action to ensure they and their underlings stop abusing minors and other vulnerable people - and who to blame when they do.
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