A LESSON TO THE WORLD IN WHAT THE LITTLE PEOPLE CAN DO

In this past Sunday's Umatuna (the "newspaper of the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam") there was printed on page 6 an article entitled: Shepherding amid scandal: Archbishops talk about healing." 

The author of the article is Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service and the editor's note says that the article was based on a June 2019 CNS interview with Archbishop Byrnes.

The article begins:

ROME - The first time Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes of Agana, Guam, celebrated Mass in his cathedral, he had to cross a picket line to do so.

and goes on to state:

When he arrived in 2016, protesters had been gathering outside the cathedral before every Mass the former archbishop celebrated. To celebrate his first Mass there, Byrnes had to cross the picket line.

This is FALSE. 

First, Archbishop Byrnes did not have to "cross a picket line" to enter the Cathedral. The Cathedral has multiple entrances, including the entrance from the sacristy. The picketers did not block any of the entrances, restricting their activity to the public sidewalk in front of the Cathedral.

Second, Archbishop Byrnes actually JOINED the picketers in a gesture of solidarity. The Pacific Daily News memorialized the Archbishop's "joining" the picketers in its news report dated February 2, 2017:

Four days after briefly joining peaceful protest in front of the cathedral, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes said he supports and respects clergy sex abuse victims’ and their supporters’ quest for justice, which he said is ongoing both at the Vatican and in the civil courts.

Third, it was not his first Mass. Archbishop Byrnes came to Guam in 2016, and the one time he JOINED the picketers was on January 29, 2017, as the Pacific Daily News memorializes:

Cindy Wooden also reports that Guam's Catholics "were in an uproar." 

The appointment “was a little overwhelming,” the archbishop said. Guam was far away and Catholics there were in an uproar.

This is also FALSE.

Other than praying the rosary and singing hymns, the public protests and picketing were absolutely silent. And almost all of the participants were elderly, some even "walking" the picket line in their wheelchairs and walkers. 

It is very doubtful that Archbishop Byrnes gave CNS such false and destructive information, so it is either the CNS author embellishing her story or the information came from someone else in the chancery, and perhaps from the same people who tried to paint us as an angry mob when Apuron was still running things. 

Such false dramatization hurts the Church. If there is anything that happened on Guam it is lesson to the rest of the Catholic world in what the "little people" can do, did do, and still do. 

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REFLECTIONS ON A BUSY WEEKEND FOR THE CATHOLICS OF GUAM

(posted by Frenchie)

This past weekend was particularly busy for many of Guam's Catholics.

While certain parishes were holding retreats for the upcoming candidates to confirmation.

St Anthony and St Victor was hosting the annual Catholic Men's conference.

St Anthony was also receiving Bishop Schneider from Astana Kazakhstan, a leading spiritual

leader of the traditional Catholics, who was invited by the Concerned Catholics of Guam.

Bishop Schneider celebrated a novos ordo Mass in Latin,  on Saturday evening, before being the guess speaker at a banquet held at the Sheraton.

Archbishop Byrnes and other clergy members were in attendance for the banquet.

On Sunday morning Bishop Schneider also celebrated Mass at the Cathedral/Basilica, following the 

rite, under the presidence, and at the invitation of Archbishop Byrnes.

THANK YOU (AGAIN) TO THE DIANA

By Tim Rohr

Just a short thank you to The Diana for crediting JW for bringing Bishop Athanasius Schneider to Guam. 

If in fact I had anything to do with Bishop Schneider's coming to Guam, I would have been posting about it for months, especially given that he has called out the likes of The Diana as subscribing to a "Jewish-Protestant Heresy." 

However, other than a re-post of CCOG's flyer a couple days ago, not only did I have nothing to do with bringing Bishop Schneider here, I purposely refused to get involved as I did not want to bring controversy to his visit, since ultimately his ability to visit Guam rested on the authority of Archbishop Byrnes to invite him.

The real credit for bringing Bishop Schneider to Guam goes to the CCOG and I can't remember the last time I have been to one of their meetings. 

But while I'm at it, I want to again thank this same Diana for getting rid of Apuron and RMS for us. 

As you may be aware, the only "weight" JW could ever bring to this battle was the number of our pageviews, which you can see are now over NINE MILLION. And I would estimate that a good 90% of those views are due to The Diana keeping the debate alive, as - per her current mention of JW -"she" still is, and once again, driving even more views to JW.

It seems so long ago now, but the whole thing was pretty much dead only a few weeks after the Fr. Paul thing in the summer of 2013. But thanks to The Diana, and with a lot of help from certain clerics in the chancery, JW was given an endless stream of things to fire back at, and fire back we did, which in turn produced tens of thousands of comments.

Ultimately it was the comments which drove the blog as more and more people would tune in just to see the comments, which exponentially drove up our numbers. And with each click up on the counter in the right side bar there was another "thump" of the tell-tale heart 'neath Apuron's bedroom floor.

By October 2013, those "thumps" from our counter began to drive Apuron crazy and he ran to Rome to try to shut me down - a move I learned about when on 10 October 2013 I received a cease and desist letter from Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, then-Grand Master of the Equestrian Knights of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem:

Read more here.

It was when I received this letter from the Vatican that I knew that I was on to something, but still did not know what, because while I had heard rumors of what eventually led to Apuron's demise, I had no knowledge of it and knew no one who did. 

The question was why was Apuron so afraid about my then-little blog, and so afraid that he ran to Rome? I really had nowhere to go for answers but thanks to The Diana, JW continued to grow and the comments came flooding in. And within those comments were increasing references to "the Agat boys." 

The rest is history and I'm no longer interested in entertaining thousands of comments, or - as you can see - even posting. But, via a friend who sent me a copy of The Diana's recent post about JW, I was just reminded as to how The Diana helped JW become the powerhouse it became, and eventually led to the first ever "ridding" of a bishop, not only by the action of the laity, but in the face of absolute opposition from the Vatican, not just by O'Brien, but by the prelate who has now taken his place: Cardinal Fernando Filoni. 

By the way, five years after O'Brien ordered me to stop picking on Apuron, O'Brien was named by Archbishop Vigano as one of the prelates involved in the homosexual cabal in the Vatican (Page 5). 

NOTE: There's a lot more to the Apuron-O'Brien-Filoni connection. And maybe I'll get around to it. Meanwhile, if you have comments, visit the JungleWatch Facebook page and leave them there. 

Courage. 

WE HIT NINE MILLION WHEN WE WEREN'T EVEN LOOKING

And now views from 207 countries. The latest is Uzbekistan. 

And 44,000 views in the last 30 days and we hardly posted a thing. 

Hmmmm. 

What could be happening?

THIS IS NO SMALL DEAL. BISHOP SCHNEIDER IS ONE OF THE FEW.

Other POSTS about or referencing Bishop Schneider on this blog