By Tim Rohr
This is Part II of AND SO THEY CRUSHED HIM
Given the scandals that began to break in 2013 and which eventually led to Byrnes’ appointment as coadjutor archbishop to the Archdiocese of Agana (“AOA”) in 2016, it was always a suspicion of those of us close to the action that the Byrnes’ appointment was not just odd, but smelled of meddling by “The Kikos.”
FIRST, at the time of Byrnes’ appointment, AOA was perhaps the most troubled diocese in the whole Catholic world.
Let’s review:
1) Apuron’s surreptitious deeding away of the “Yona Property” * to The Kikos had been uncovered;
2) Four people had come forward publicly and alleged sexual abuse by Apuron beginning the exposure of what would become the largest sex abuse scandal in the Catholic world;
3) Apuron had fled Guam and had surfaced at the Vatican under what appeared to be the protection of Pope Francis;
4) the Vatican had appointed an Apostolic Administrator (Savio Hon Tai Fai), a lieutenant of "The Red Pope," of whom we will say more later; and
5) due much to Hon’s mismanagement - or The Red Pope's directions to Hon, lay Catholics had risen up and had pushed through legislation lifting the civil statute of limitations on sex abuse of minors, opening the door to litigation and bankruptcy for AOA.
So why would the Vatican, i.e. the pope, appoint someone to run the most troubled diocese in the world who didn’t even know where Guam was:
Q: What was your reaction upon being chosen by Pope Francis to head AOA?
A: I was shocked. The first thing I asked was "Where is Guam?" I had no idea I was appointed for the position.
An interview with Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes, 11/4/16
And a bishop whose only knowledge of Guam was from what he knew of World War II:
“I did look up Guam on my phone when I found out,” Archbishop Byrnes said. “I knew what Guam was; I read enough about World War II."
Detroit Catholic, Following God to Guam
SECOND, Bynres, as a bishop, falls under the purview of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops (“USCCB”). However AOA is not a member of the USCCB. It is a member of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific (“CEPAC”). So why would the Vatican appoint a coadjutor bishop * from the USCCB and not CEPAC?
So, there were three factors: 1) the most troubled diocese in the world and whose bishop had run away to Rome; 2) the appointment of an acting bishop who knew nothing of Guam; and 3) the appointment of a bishop from a bishop’s conference that officially had no relation with Guam, i.e. AOA.
Three red flags.
That could only mean The Kiko’s.
No doubt, Byrnes’ predecessor, the temporary Administrator, Archbishop Hon, had much to do with Byrnes’ appointment.
Hon, at the time, was Secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Hon’s boss, the prefect of said congregation, was none other than “The Red Pope,” Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who is nicknamed “The Red Pope,” because it was well known at the time that it was Filoni who actually ran the Vatican. And it was also known to those of us who paid attention, that he had acquired such power due, at least partially, to his alliance with The Kiko’s at the highest level.
It was always known that The Kiko’s via The Red Pope, Filoni, were running things here in Guam. And on Sep. 21, 2016, two months before Byrnes’ arrival, Fr. Jeff San Nicolas, then the Vicar General, said so:
"Cardinal Filoni is in charge.” - Guam Daily Post
After Byrnes’ arrival, Byrnes himself verified that Filoni was running things, and in fact running him:
“Byrnes added that Filoni, as the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is something like his superior and that he reports to Filoni.” - Guam Daily Post, Feb. 16, 2017
So at this point we have a bishop (Byrnes) from a U.S. bishops conference which has no official relation with AOA, who is appointed to run AOA, and who has to “report to” a Vatican official, The Red Pope (aka “The Kiko’s Pope”).
So why is that?
This gets us off track for a moment but:
The AOA's connection to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples ("CEP," of which Filoni was then the Prefect) is the tip of another absurd scandal. CEP oversees missionary dioceses. So why was Guam (in 2016 and still in 2022) a “missionary diocese,” when in fact Guam has been Catholic for nearly 400 years and nearly 90% of the island is Catholic and has been for a very long time?
As they say: “Follow the money.” There is much money available to missionary dioceses. Perhaps this is why then-Archbishop Flores removed AOA* from the USCCB and allied it with CEPAC, which is still mostly missionary territory. Whatever the initial reason, more recent “operators on the hill” (the Chancery) have used said monies to fund very nice salaries for themselves.
This scandal was exposed earlier on this blog and perhaps we will link to it at another time, * but the bottom line is that the AOA’s lust for free money placed the AOA, if only tangentially, under the purview of Filoni, who probably, like Byrnes, did not even know where Guam was until trouble arose.
* Here is the link.
And that trouble was the Redemptoris Mater Seminary (“RMS”).
One may wonder why someone so highly placed like Filoni would care about what was going on in far flung Guam. He probably didn’t, at least not until The Kiko’s brought it to his attention.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS
In the Vatican power structure, it’s the Cardinals who run everything - including choosing the pope - then thereafter controlling him. The ticket to The Red Hat (a Cardinal) is usually first being a “successful” bishop with “success” meaning numbers, specifically numbers of new priests.
The Kikos, in order to consolidate power long term, needed a bishop who would follow orders and ordain who they said to ordain and produce the numbers they wanted. The Kiko’s already had many bishops who hosted RMS's, but the problem was that many, if not the majority of The Kiko’s recruits, did not pass muster for the priesthood and were let go by otherwise careful bishops. Thus, The Kiko's needed a bishop who they could control and who would ordain the rejects from other RMS's.
And that was Apuron.
The story now, at this point, would veer into Adrian Cristobal’s role in bringing The Kiko's to Guam, but we won’t go there now. Bottom line is that Apuron ordained who The Kiko’s told him to ordain, regardless of the fact that the formation at the Yona RMS was a sham. *
But then came JungleWatch, Concerned Catholics of Guam (“CCOG”) the Laity Forward Movement (“LFM”) and hordes of Guam Catholics who for years had been duped into funneling Million of Dollars into RMS in the belief that this was a “seminary for Guam” when it was never a "seminary for Guam, but only a “seminary IN Guam” which was set up to suck money out of local Catholics while manufacturing priests for The Kiko’s to send wherever they wanted and to increase their influence in Rome.
AND SO THEY CRUSHED HIM
Byrnes became The Kiko’s ENEMY NUMBER ONE when he closed the Yona RMS. So far it is the first and only RMS (The Kiko’s Seminary System) to be officially closed by a presiding bishop. In shutting down RMS, Byrnes - while not trying to - exposed the sham that was the RMS priest-factory. This undermines the whole of The Kiko’s power structure so Byrnes had to be destroyed.
And so they crushed him.
P.S. And they almost did the same to JungleWatch...and its "blogger."
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