{"id":247692,"date":"2017-03-06T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-05T20:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=247692"},"modified":"2017-03-06T06:00:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T20:00:26","slug":"guam-archbishop-settlements-promising-end-abuse-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-archbishop-settlements-promising-end-abuse-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Guam archbishop: Settlements are a promising end to abuse lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>HAGATNA,\u00a0Guam<\/strong>\u00a0(AP)\u2014The leader of\u00a0Guam\u2019s\u00a0Catholic Church believes financial settlements could be a good solution for the archdiocese, which is facing $115 million in civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse at the hands of priests.<\/p>\n<p>Archbishop Michael Byrnes told The Associated Press Friday that settling with the alleged victims would be a \u201creal promising option,\u201d but he did not elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, the Rev. Louis Brouillard told the AP that he molested about 20 boys while he was a priest in\u00a0Guam\u00a0over a 30-year period, starting in the 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>Byrnes said the 95-year-old Brouillard is the main figure in the 23 lawsuits, and that the church will pay for some of the priest\u2019s legal fees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not paying the legal defense of the accused,\u201d Byrnes said. \u201cIn the specific case of Father Brouillard, we are going to pay for a lawyer for his deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Byrnes says the archdiocese has revamped its sexual abuse policies and will have greater financial transparency, adding that the archdiocese would like to avoid bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could mean the liquidation of a lot of properties \u2014whether financial or real property, and that\u2019s just reality. Apart from that, we\u2019re already facing a reality of a trust factor. The church has lost the trust of a lot of the faithful,\u201d Byrnes said. \u201cWe could lose a lot of buildings and we\u2019d still be the church. But without the trust of people, it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic church of\u00a0Guam\u00a0has 26 parishes around the island.<\/p>\n<p>Guam\u00a0Archbishop Anthony Apuron also faces multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in the 1970s. Apuron, who is currently under investigation by the Vatican, has denied the claims and has not been criminally charged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAGATNA,\u00a0Guam\u00a0(AP)\u2014The leader of\u00a0Guam\u2019s\u00a0Catholic Church believes financial settlements could be a good solution for the archdiocese,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7059,15840,1806,15841],"class_list":["post-247692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pacific","tag-catholic-church","tag-father-brouillard","tag-hagatna","tag-louis-brouillard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}