WELL, JAYNE, IS THAT TRUE OR NOT?

By Tim Rohr

This morning, a friend sent the following:

Jayne Flores wrote an opinion piece on your analysis of the Epstein case.  She went off the rails.  Does she really believe you condone and agree with what Epstein was doing with young girls and women?  She obviously doesn't know you that well.  

Secondly, she can't see that you were mocking how loose our society has become with sex. . . You see it in movies, magazines, women wearing flimsy clothes, etc.  Epstein took advantage of this to make money and to share it with the girls he brought to his pleasure island.  They were all seemingly "happy" like those in Sodom and Gomorrah, till they got caught.  

Sure, the girls changed from "thanks for the money" to "I was abused" when they all got caught and shamed in public. Maybe some tried to resist and some were naive.  Who knows. . . and neither does Jayne Flores.  The trouble with people like Jayne, they're so arrogant and think they are so righteous they know best what'd good for Guam and society.  They can't see the truth through their "colored lenses."

. . . and what's happening to our society when people like her are in positions of authority and power and try to push a radical agenda, like abortion is okay.  She also believes selling or giving out free condoms to 18 year olds is okay.  That's opening a Pandora's Box.  Doesn't she know when we were teenagers, we tried to buy cigarettes or beer by asking older teens to buy those items for us?  Or we get fake ID's made to fool the store clerks?

+++++

There is only one thing not correct in the above message. Jayne Flores isn't "giving out free condoms to 18 year olds," she is pushing contraceptives to anyone of any age...some of whom are much younger than 18, not to mention the almost exclusive use of her office and our money to push "legal murder they call abortion" (to quote the Steel Pulse song "Wild Goose Chase").

I haven't read Jayne's piece and I'm not going to. Find it and read it if you want. I'll rely on the above summary because it's already an old story with Jayne and her militant abortion-loving friends, including the governor. 

Back to my Epstein piece, as I shared, it got me CANCELLED from the Guam Daily Post as a regular columnist for nearly two years. I sort of knew it might, but someone needed to tell the truth and that's what I do.

In fact, if you read my Epstein piece carefully there is not a single false statement. And, even though I was being ironic, the truth itself was ironic enough that I didn't need to stretch anything. 

Here were my key points:

1. The girls were paid sex-workers, not victims. As my friend point out above, the only became "victims" after the whole thing was outed.

2. In the context of who can have sex with who, age 18 means nothing given that the age of consent and even the marrying age can be much younger. 

3. We already tacitly condone minors having sex with whoever they want by pushing - as Jayne's office does - free contraception for all and even abortions in case those condoms and pills fail (which they do). 

4. Pedophilia is a sexual preference for prepubescent children, not the adolescents that Epstein and his clients preferred. 

5. Pedophilia is a convenient label to take the spotlight off the real issue: we live in a sex saturated culture and we are already okay with our 14 year-olds engaging in sex or we wouldn't be trying so hard to hand out contraceptives and abortions - as Jayne and her boss do.

In my Epstein piece, I called out Jayne and her office:

Here in Guam, as advertised on the website for the Bureau of Women’s Affairs, contraception is free at all public health facilities. Apparently there is no age limit. Hmmm. Kids can’t buy cigarettes until they’re 18, but can help themselves to condoms and birth control pills as soon as they’re tall enough to peer over the counter and say “Please Sir, I want some more.”

Well, Jayne, is that true or not?

The fact is that contraception and abortion, Jayne's two beloved step-children, go hand in hand with sex-trafficking. And, more than dirty old men like Jeffrey Epstein, government agencies like the one Jayne runs contribute more to the degradation, defilement, and destruction of the young, especially girls. 

Remember our own Blue House scandal a few years ago? It was functionally a sex-trafficking whore house. Some mamasan was bringing in Micronesian girls, confiscating their passports, and forcing the girls to have sex with the customers, most famously certain police officers. 

Well, in case you didn't know, sex with young women of child-bearing age can make young women child-bearing, so of course putting the girls on the pill, or the patch, or whatever, would have been requisite for mamasan's business. But, as the news exposed, some of those girls still got pregnant and they were hustled down to the abortuaries in Tamuning, which in those days were killing a baby a day.

Contraception and abortion isn't about the rights of females - as Jayne and her ilk would have us believe. It's about covering the tracks of dirty old men like the Jeffrey Esptein's or even, in the Blue House case, some of our own police officers. 

And apparently in Guam, sex-traffickers have no better friend than the Bureau of Women's Affairs, and the woman who runs it.

Note: The Blue House Case was back in the news this past January 2025

CASTI CONNUBII

By Tim Rohr

Relative to the last few posts over the furor my Epstein column created, for anyone who really cares about God's plan for "be fruitful and multiply," the gold-standard in the Catholic Church is Pope Pius XI's CASTI CONNUBII (On Christian Marriage). 

Upon reading it (and listening to it here), I can't help but wonder how much happier married life would be if our priests simply sat down with couples and read through it.  It's so clear and comforting. 

SINGAPORE?

Our Flag Counter (side bar) shows the countries with the most views of this blog. As of today, Guam is followed by the United States. And Singapore comes in 3rd. Why Singapore? I don't know.

 

ANONYMOUS OFFERS GOOD ADVICE...MY REPLY

By Tim Rohr

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "ANONYMOUS: "THERE'S A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR YOU"":

If I were in your shoes and the hate comments kept coming in against me, I would, 1. Refuse to dignify hate comments 2. I would refuse to comment back 3. Understanding I cannot change a persons position especially if they believe it to their core would prompt me to go into silent mode 4. Respond only to conversations worthy of dialogue that are productive, positive and engaging. People will never be satisfied even if you're doing something positive. There's always that negative anomaly lurking about. People that express hatred openly have a real issue with decorum, maturity and healthy dialogue. They come into a conversation to win the argument and ignoring results. 

MY REPLY

Thank you for your thoughts. Whenever I get hate comments, the thought does occur to me to do as you say. However, I also see these comments as an opportunity, not to change the haters’ minds, but to educate other readers on issues that wouldn’t make sense if I brought them up in isolation. 

For instance, the post IT’S JUST NATURE: MY RESPONSE TO THE HATERS gave me an opportunity to share the solid Catholic teaching about God’s plan for our procreative faculties. If I had brought this topic up on its own, it may have been seen as preachy and out of context of anything. 

The post on which you are commenting, initiated by the latest hate comments, allows me to continue to spotlight what the Catholic Catechism terms an “objective disorder.” I keep heavily hinting at it, but I am still allowing readers to determine what it is for themselves. 

The fact is that this level of hate is itself an “objective disorder” which is way out of line from just a difference of opinion. So I want to put it on display as evidence of what I am talking about. This kind of unhinged malevolence can only come from someone who's intellect is deeply darkened by sin.

Also, the accusations against me in my legal matter are well known since the press smeared them all over the media in 2018. I was able to disprove them but the press is never going to print that side of the story, so whenever I’m accused by a commenter, it gives me the opportunity to set the record straight.

One more thought on this. Your advice - I know it is well meaning - is exactly the advice I received from my lawyer after I was falsely accused of child and spousal abuse. I took the advice and promptly lost my children and 5 years of their lives and who knows how much damage to their psyche for the rest of their lives. All because my lawyer didn’t want to “dignify” those accusations with a response. 

When falsely accused, what we don’t want to do is get angry and lash back in the same unhinged way. Better to expose the accusations and deal with them rationally in a truthful, calm way which is what I try to do and will continue to do. 

People like to say “the truth will come out.” I have learned that it doesn’t happen that way. Someone has to do something to make the truth come out. So I do it.

Thanks again. 

ANONYMOUS: "THERE'S A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR YOU"

By Tim Rohr

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "IT'S JUST NATURE: MY RESPONSE TO THE HATERS":

So he doth protest too much. After reading up on your own abuse scandal, no wonder you lost custody of your kids and your wife had to move away. As a survivor of CSA and having dealt with my father's denial and "false accusation" accusation-- I know there's a special place in hell for you. Vile.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "IT'S JUST NATURE: MY RESPONSE TO THE HATERS":

Surely there are less humiliating ways to solicit attention.

Most of these hate comments appear to be coming from the same guy, so apparently I'm living rent-free in his head. 

I'm used to this, of course. Twelve years on this blog, nearly 15 Million page views, 6,000+ posts and 70,000 comments - dealing with some of the most terrible stuff and getting shot at by haters through it all. 

I call them "haters," but a better word is "cowards." A self-respecting, strong person would contact me with a real name and explain his or her differences. And who knows, I might be convinced. But instead these cowards hide in the bushes behind "anonymous" and throw stones. 

It's been awhile though since I've received this level of hate: "there's a special place in hell for you." 

That seems a bit extreme for my thoughts about the Epstein thing. So I'm quite sure it wasn't what I said about Epstein that tripped this guy's trigger, but what I said about the real reason for the clergy sex abuse thing when I said it wasn't pedophilia (given the actual data), and then followed that fact with "I'll let you figure out what it was."

I knew when I wrote that last little "figure it out" thing that it would trigger exactly what this guy is displaying. And I also believe this is what triggered Marc Watanabe to fire me as a featured columnist at the Post. I've written about very controversial topics for two years, but I hadn't touched this particular one until the Epstein column a couple days ago.

The timing was interesting. The Post not only ran my column this past Wednesday, but also touched up a few of my sentences including the "figure it out." I had originally written: "I'll let you figure out what was." I intended the sentence that way. However, the Post inserted the word "it": "I'll let you figure out what it was." 

So whoever was doing the editing had no problem with the column or it wouldn't have run. But then only a few hours later I received the "you're cancelled" email from Marc Watanabe. I've never dealt with Watanabe before, only Paul Charfarous. I'm assuming it was Paul who edited my column and put it in print, and either Watanabe later took personal offense to it or someone with influence got a hold of him.

Anyway, the "it" is a sacred cow, and how dare I call it out. (And I'm still going to let you "figure out what it was.")

Meanwhile though, back to this stuff about my personal case referenced in the first comment. The allegations were not true and things worked out for me in the end - though nothing can ever make up for the trauma my minor children suffered because of it all. The haters and the cowards will pay one day. And I'm not referring to my accusers. I'm referring to the people who paid them.

IT'S JUST NATURE: MY RESPONSE TO THE HATERS

By Tim Rohr

It appears my Epstein post has caused a bit of a stir. First, it got me "fired" from the Guam Daily Post, and since, I've received a steady stream of hate mail and comments like the following:

bruce gulick <bruce.gulick@gmail.com>

You’re deranged, and a disgrace to the family that attempted to raise you.

May God have mercy on your soul.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "HAPPY PAGE VIEW ANNIVERSARY":

And yet NO COMMENTS. Well, none except for this one mocking you. Turns out everyone hates you. Isn’t that correct, pedophile-lover?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "CANCELLED ":

You literally asked what the fuss was about over 14-year-old sex workers while immediately pointing out after that the age for consensual sex was at minimum 16.

there.third.below@clkdmail.com

Good afternoon,

I just came across you blog. You are definitely a pedophile and then I saw that you are involved with the Catholic Church and it all made sense.Thank you 

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "THE EPSTEIN THING":

Have you lost your fucking mind? He abused literal CHILDREN you sick sonofabitch 

No problem, the hate gives me the opportunity to go further on the issue than I could in a space-limited column.

The question is not at what age is it okay to engage in sex, and I mean sexual activity of any sort, but when is it right at all?

I hold to the Catholic position as copied here directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The fecundity of marriage

2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life," teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life." "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act."

The essential statement in this paragraph is:

"it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life."

Notice that it's not called a "sex act," but a "marriage act." Marriage is assumed as the good and natural state for "the act," and since "the act" must "remain ordered...to...procreation," marriage is assumed to be between a man and a woman.

In short, and to be blunt, sex is only "okay" when it occurs within a marriage between a man and a woman and only when sex is ordered to procreation - in other words: no contraception - thus the Church's prohibition.

This isn't my opinion. It is the universal teaching of the Catholic Church, always was and always will be, simply because it is founded in the very beginnings of humanity:

God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female* he created them. God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.* (Genesis 27-28)

This is also why even so-called "natural family planning" (periodic continence) is also wrong (a sin) when it is employed without grave reason. (Look it up.) The whole point of marriage, God's point, (properly called "the ends of marriage") is to "be fruitful and multiply." 

Argue with God. Not me.

And this is why, in my Epstein post, I mocked the whole idea of these false lines we draw which say at this age this is okay, and not at that age. As I pointed out, the ages of majority and consent are artificial government-made lines, and they are made even more irrelevant by our making contraception available and even free to minors of any age at our public health centers and even our schools. 

In fact, to further demonstrate the point, consider the following from a group organized to oppose child marriage:

Child marriage occurs when one or both of the parties to the marriage are below the age of 18. Child marriage is currently legal in 34 states, and 4 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver.

Here in Guam, until 2015, the legal marrying age for a female was age 14 with parental consent, which, at the time, was pretty much the standard throughout the U.S. I'll explain why it changed in 2015 in a minute. But it's clear that our laws approved of a 14 year old girl engaging in sexual relations pursuant to the consent of the parents to marry. There was no maximum age for her husband so presumably he could be much older. 

So there's another moveable line. And if a line is moveable, it really has no meaning. Thus, my sarcastic quip in my Epstein piece: "What's all the fuss?" For anyone with a brain not yet darkened by whatever perverse prejudice may be beholding it at the moment, I believe my sarcastic quip was clear: On the one hand we self-righteously condemn a dirty old man like Jeffrey Epstein and on the other we're handing our kids contraceptives and even legislating that they be paid with tax dollars and handed out at our public health centers. 

In Guam in 2015, then-Senator Narissa Underwood introduced Bill 119-33, the "Guam Marriage Equality Act of 2015." The bill raised the marriage age to 16. The aim of the bill was not to protect 14 year old girls, but was a reaction to Guam's marriage law being caught between a rock and a hard place after SCOTUS legalized same-sex marriage. 

Since two persons of the same sex could now marry, gender language (male and female) had to be eliminated. The legal minimum age for marriage for males was already 16, so what to do with the "girls." Oh, wait a minute, there are no longer boys and girls, just partners, so the bill made it 16 for everybody. Another moveable, government-made line. 

Thus my sarcasm about our sanctimonious crusade against a single dirty old man and this meaningless appeal to something magical happening at 18 that makes it okay to have sex but not buy beer. Here is the relevant portion of Senator Underwood's Bill 119-33 which became Public Law 33-65.

The bottom line, even if you don't believe in God is that sex makes babies, or at least is designed to, even if it is only Nature's design. And the best place for those babies to grow up, prosper, and make babies of their own, i.e. the survival of our species, is in the context of a mother and a father committed to each other for life. It's just Nature. 

As a P.S., I know where the hate is coming from. It's this line: "So pedophilia was not the operative perversion. I’ll let you figure out what it was."

 

CANCELLED

By Tim Rohr

I've been submitting columns as a featured columnist since August 2023. I'm surprised they kept me this long. Received today:

However, in my "false allegations" series, I was getting dangerously close to the conspiracy that tried to destroy me in 2018. In fact, in the back of my mind, upon submitting those first two installments (Part 1, Part 2), I was tacitly testing to see what would happen. It didn't take long. 

Meanwhile, this blog gets far more views than the Post ever will. So I will continue. I'll put up Part 3 in a few days. There will probably be 4 parts total.

THE EPSTEIN THING

LINK to online version

Putting my “false allegations” series on hold for the moment, I want to address the Epstein thing.

I don’t have a problem acknowledging that Jeffrey Epstein was most likely a deep state intelligence operative. Nothing else explains how he got away with so much for so long. It also explains why the so-called “client list” remains elusive.

I am also quite on board with the assertion that Epstein rose mysteriously to unprecedented wealth and influence because he was extraordinarily adept at supplying a steady stream of sex-workers to powerful people.

I call them “sex-workers” and not “victims” on purpose.

Hardly an Epstein story goes by without the requisite media sobbing about his “victims.” There are two problems with this. First, they weren’t victims. Second, it’s a distraction from the real matter: uncovering Epstein’s deep-state connections and activities - in short, who Epstein was really working for and why.

His “girls,” minors or not, was just the currency he trafficked in to do his job, a job that made him a billionaire since no other business activity or financial venture can be identified as the source of his voluminous cash flow.

They weren’t victims

According to the court papers I have read, all of Epstein’s “girls” arrived at his many mansions willingly and were well-paid for their services. They were sex-workers, not victims, and it appears the majority of them not only liked their “jobs,” but recruited others for similar employment.

I saw and worked with real victims of sexual abuse in the Apuron case. At the time of their being victimized, they were young, trusting altar boys who thought they were only helping their pastor when he invited them to his house of horrors. They weren’t expecting to be molested, raped, and then threatened to keep their mouths shut for the rest of their now ruined lives.

That’s what a victim looks like. That’s what abuse looks like.

Underage?

Court papers say some of Epstein’s sex-workers were as young as 14. So? What’s all the fuss? Being less than 18 years old might keep you from buying cigarettes, but the law in most states, including Guam, says it’s okay to engage in consensual sex at 16.

Meanwhile, while the majority of Americans are all riled up about Epstein and his clients, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry that same majority of Americans (67%) supports distribution of free contraceptives in schools. Ummm, what do you think these little girls and boys are going to do with that stuff?

Here in Guam, as advertised on the website for the Bureau of Women’s Affairs, contraception is free at all public health facilities. Apparently there is no age limit. Hmmm. Kids can’t buy cigarettes until they’re 18, but can help themselves to condoms and birth control pills as soon as they’re tall enough to peer over the counter and say “Please Sir, I want some more.”

Those who think “they’re just going to do it anyway” are probably thinking their teens are having sex with teens, so they might as well be “protected.” But as the Epstein story (and many others) demonstrates, why would a fourteen year old girl want to have sex with a broke fourteen year old boy when she can score thousands of dollars off an older man with means?

So don’t give me that “they were only 14 and didn’t know any better.” Parents (67% anyway) are practically handing their minor children contraceptives and signing a permission slip to have sex with whoever they want. Should we now be upset when those same kids figure out a way to make money at it - as Epstein’s girls did?

Pedophile?

It’s a useful word because of its “disgust” level, but Epstein was no pedophile - a pervert yes, but no pedophile. Pedophilia is clinically defined as a sexual preference for prepubescent children. While the record shows that Jeffrey liked them young, he didn’t like them that young.

The same with Apuron and just about all of the clergy sex abuse cases nationwide. The record (the John Jay Report) shows that the sexual preference was for adolescents, i.e. sexually mature, and in the clergy cases, overwhelmingly male. So pedophilia was not the operative perversion. I’ll let you figure out what was.

Given the filth and perversity we as a society unthinkingly accommodate daily, it’s hard not to see that all this righteous fixation on Epstein’s “list” isn’t a collective Freudian conscience-swabbing exercise in projection.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com 

HAPPY PAGE VIEW ANNIVERSARY

Per our page view counter in the side bar, 7/20/13 was the day we started counting. Yesterday, 7/20/25, that makes 12 years. 

That comes out to 1,234,448 per year and 103,962 views per month. 

Thanks for hanging with us.

FR. HAROLD: "FULL OF PAGANS AND BALONEY"

 Fr. Harold says he's "trying to sanctify this whole situation fool of pagans and baloney." I guess he means anyone not in his cult.

HOW TO HANDLE FALSE ALLEGATIONS - PART 2

LINK to online version

To review, this is a series of columns in which I am addressing how to handle false accusations of domestic violence (or worse), especially if you are a husband and/or father.

In Part 1, I laid out the “pit” I found myself in in May 2018 and how false accusations led to the loss of my minor children for five years.

I ended that first column by urging the reader to not leave your interests to your lawyer and to at least get a fundamental understanding of legal procedural basics.

There’s a lot to know, but the most important procedural thing to know is this: Motion-Opposition-Reply.

After the legal proceeding is initiated by a complaint or petition, there will usually be a number of motions. A motion is when a party moves the court to do something. The important thing to know is that you have a right to either oppose the motion or reply to the other party’s opposition to your motion. Not knowing this is what cost me my children and five tragic, damaging, and expensive years.

In my case, I had moved the court for custody of my children. The other party opposed my motion on grounds that I had sexually abused my children and supported her opposition with declarations from two of my adult daughters.

My then-attorney failed to file a reply which left the court no option but to assume the allegations were true and deny my motion for custody. But that was only the beginning of the damage because those unanswered allegations became headlines in May 2018 when for a full week I was smeared in the local media as a wife-beater and a molester of my own children.

Had my attorney filed a reply, I could have presented evidence disproving the allegations, and, while the press may have still done the story, at least my side, and maybe even a court decision in my favor, would have been in the record. Years of damage might have been avoided.

The problem was that at the time I didn’t know that I could have filed a reply because I completely trusted my attorney who not only failed to file a reply but chose not to inform me of her decision not to file.

Two months after the fact, and after being destroyed in the media, an attorney friend asked me if I filed a reply. I didn’t even know what that was. He told me. I called my attorney to inquire. Let’s just say I ended up firing that attorney and got my retainer back.

Bottom line is you must know your rights in court. That’s why it’s called a “justice system.” You always have a right to respond. True, there was no guarantee that the court would have ruled in my favor had I replied, but at least my reply would have been in the record.

The foregoing is critical because at the beginning of a case there is likely to be a flurry of false allegations - just mud up against the wall - in an attempt to overwhelm you and make you throw in your bloodied towel. So remember: Motion-Opposition-Reply.

Just to be clear, this isn’t legal advice. Just my experience. So going on.

The next thing to know is never - I repeat - never speak to the other party once legal action is initiated - or even once it looks like legal action is coming. Keep everything in writing, preferably email as email is easier to authenticate than texts or even physical writings.

However, if you must communicate orally, record your communications. It doesn’t have to be a secret recording. You are in a legal battle at this point and it should be understood that “everything you say can or will be held against you in a court of law.” So record, record, record.

The next thing is to gather, gather, gather. Search everywhere for anything and everything written: cards, letters, notes, emails, texts, messages, everything. You are going to need to prove - if the allegations are false - that not only was there no evidence of what you are being accused of, but that prior to your breakup, you had  mostly normal and even loving relationships with your now-accusers, and written communications are the best evidence.

Now, before I go on to the next step, there is something you should already be doing: take care of yourself, especially physically. You’re going to need your health - every bit of it.

See you next time.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com 

IT APPEARS O'MALLEY DID NOTHING

By Tim Rohr

Pope Leo has appointed a new bishop to head the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. French bishop, Thibault Verny, will replace the now retired Cardinal Sean O’Malley. 

The Newsmax story notes that the commission under O’Malley “lost influence” and that O’Malley’s “crowning recommendation…went nowhere.”

Said “recommendation” was “the creation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests.” 

This caught my eye.

One of the reasons the Vatican was slow to get involved in addressing Guam's "Apuron problem" back in 2016 when O'Malley was running the commission, was that while the Vatican was equipped to discipline "predator priests," it had no protocol for disciplining "predator bishops." 

Guam and the Apuron Scandal were unique in that regard, and the Vatican was left scrambling in 2016-2017 when those incessant picketers, mostly elderly, for 54 straight weeks, refused to lay down their signs and go away.

The distant but ever increasing thunder in Guam finally forced the Vatican to investigate Apuron and ultimately try him despite not having a canonical protocol, which means they probably threw one together ad hoc. 

It also means that had not "those lay people" taken matters into their own hands, the Vatican never would have gotten involved and Apuron would have remained the archbishop, at least until he was 75, the age all diocesan bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope.

The canonical "ad hoc-ness" of the Apuron Affair became evident when Apuron appealed his guilty verdict and Pope Francis stepped in to handle it personally. 

At the time, Apuron filing an appeal didn't seem out of the ordinary. But in hindsight, especially with the recent news - which I'll get back to - Francis was probably advised to take on the appeal because if there wasn't a canonical protocol to handle Apuron's trial, there certainly was no protocol to handle his appeal.

I've written much about this before, but at the time, I and others were quite sure that the Neocat Generals were hard at work attempting to take advantage of this big hole in Canon Law to get their boy off the hook. 

And I think they would have succeeded if not for the untimely events relative to the McCarrick Scandal occurring (August 2018) just as Francis had taken on Apuron's appeal. In short, the McCarrick Scandal was so damaging to Francis that he had to look "tough on crime," so he threw Apuron under the bus. 

And that brings us back to the news and to why Cardinal O'Malley's "crowning recommendation" - a protocol for judging bishops - "went nowhere."

The Vatican action on Apuron (2017-2019) occurred smack dab in the middle of O'Malley's tenure (2014-2025). In fact, given the timing, it appears the Apuron Mess was probably the prompt for O'Malley to at least suggest doing something about bad bishops - even if his "recommendation" only dealt with bishops who covered for predator priests and for some reason skipped on addressing predator bishops.

So why - with the Apuron case right in front of both O'Malley and the pope - did O'Malley's "recommendation" go "nowhere?" And why, given O'Malley's high and powerful profile as the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston - and even considered "papabile" - did he "lose influence" - as the Newsmax story points out?

The common denominator

It's not hard to figure out when you step back and see the common denominator: THE NEOCATS. 

O'Malley was, and still is, a big promoter of the Neocatechumenal Way and especially its priest factory system: the Redemptoris Mater seminaries. 

A 2023 article, praises O'Malley for the significant growth of the NCW in the Boston Archdiocese: "There was only one Neocatechumenal Way community in the archdiocese when the cardinal arrived. Now, there are 52 communities in 11 parishes throughout the archdiocese."

In fact, O'Malley is openly campaigning for Neocat co-founder Carmen Hernandez' cause for sainthood. 

Just google "Cardinal Sean O'Malley Neocatechumenal Way" for lots more.

O'Malley's problem with advancing any agenda as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is that the Neocatechumenal communities - as we well know in Guam - are a safe haven for the very "predator priests" and protector bishops O'Malley was tasked to take on.

Think of it. Who do you think has been supporting Apuron all these years? Where did Luis Camacho run to? And where is Wadeson? John Wadeson. All three of them - not to mention Adrian and others - ran away from Guam after being outed. 

We found Luis hiding in Qatar under the protection of a Neocat-friendly bishop. A friend of mine recently came across Wadeson in Hawaii - "ministering" to Neocat communities. And Apuron. We can be sure he is not only being well taken care of by the Neocats but is probably fully functioning as a bishop in those communities as well. And let's not forget who his attorney has been for 10 years. 

Oh and speaking of McCarrick, the worst of the worst, where did the finally disgraced Cardinal go after he was publicly outed? The Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Maryland.

Next to Cardinal Filoni, O'Malley was the Neocats' best friend in high office. So how was he going to push forward any sort of discipline for bishops when the one bishop in the world who needed to be disciplined was the one bishop who was - and still is - a Neocat: Apuron.

So, in the name of saving Neocats - and probably with plenty of "gentle pressure" from the Neocat Generals - it appears O'Malley did nothing.