Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron Found Guilty of Abuse, Will Be Removed from Position

A Vatican trial found Archbishop of Guam, Anthony Sablan Apuron, guilty of the sexual abuse of minors. Within hours of the ruling, Archbishop Apuron said he would appeal the decision. The Apostolic Tribunal of the Congrega­tion for the Doctrine of the Faith, which found Arch­bishop Apuron guilty, consisted of five judges appointed by the Prefect of the Congregation. The tribunal removed him from office and prohibited him from residing in the archdi­ocese, though he has not been dismissed from the clerical state and still remains a bishop. He was found guilty of only “some of the accusations,” which included the sexual abuse of minors, but the ruling did not specify which ones. More than 100 lawsuits had been filed against the arch­diocese for alleged abuses between the 1950s and 1980s. In May 2016, several former altar-boys accused Archbishop Apuron of sexu­ally abusing them in the 1970s and filed lawsuits against him and the archdi­ocese. One the archbishop’s nephews also accused the archbishop of abusing him in 1990. Archbishop Apuron is one of the high­est-ranking church officials to have been tried and found guilty by a Vatican tribunal for accusations that included the sexual abuse of minors.