KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR KIDS, ESPECIALLY YOUR SONS

By Tim Rohr

In writing the post about the passing of Doris Concepcion yesterday, I was struck by what she had told the PDN reporter back in 2016:

"She said her son...often talked about committing suicide..." 

As the story demonstrates, Doris, at the time did not understand this sudden change in her son from a normal happy 9 year old to suicidal child and a boy who would soon grow into drug abuse and many self-harm behaviors - ultimately dying at age 38.

"Senators, I know my brother was raped by Archbishop Apuron. He was sodomized. He was only 9 years old." - TESTIMONY of John Michael (Champ) Quinata July 28, 2016, at the public hearing for Bill 326-33

Doris didn't understand it because she hadn't put "2 and 2 together," something she wouldn't do until that day in 2016 when she saw Roy Quintanilla on the PDN website accusing Archbishop Apuron of sexually molesting him when he was also a child. 

Guam has consistently had an inordinate rate of suicide, consistently higher than the rest of the U.S., and in some years, more than twice the national rate. A strange statistic given the faith and family ethic we so pride ourselves on.

SOURCE

However, given what we know now about the decades of clergy sex abuse of young boys like then 9 year-old Joseph (Sonny) Quinata, a per capita rate of abuse higher than any other place in the U.S. if not the whole world, then we might begin to see the problem. *

We don't need any more awareness months, banners, candle-lighting ceremonies, waves, or "clergy days of recollection" for that matter, nor all the other stuff we do to make us feel like we are doing something. We need to take out the bad guys who do this crap. And the first step to doing that is to name the demon - the real one. 

Meanwhile, keep an eye on your kids, especially your sons. 

* By the time the Archdiocese of Agana filed for bankruptcy on January 15, 2019, the number of clergy sex abuse cases was 14 times more than that of the Archdiocese of Boston which was so bad that it inspired the Academy Award winning movie "Spotlight."