REMEMBERING BOB KLITZKIE...WITH THE BOOK HE WANTED WRITTEN

By Tim Rohr

The anniversary of Bob Klitzkie's passing (April 2, 2025) will be in a few weeks. Bob was an important, if not daily presence in my life for nearly two decades. A whole book could be written about our adventures, and maybe I'll write it. 

Meanwhile, I have decided to write another book, a book that Bob had been urging me to write for several years and till the day he died: the story of how a ragtag group of laypeople, mostly elderly, and some even in wheelchairs and walkers, banded together to bring down the sex trafficking complex that ruled the Archdiocese of Agana for decades. 

While I was the face of that "lay movement," Bob was the brains behind it. That should come as no surprise. Anybody who knew Bob knew he was the "brains" behind just about anything worthwhile. 

I sure miss him, and I could certainly use his brains now. But he taught me well, and maybe he's teaching me still.

The title of the book, Bob's book, at least for now, is: 

ORCHESTRATED

How a blog took down an archbishop and exposed the largest clergy sex abuse rampage in the whole Catholic world.

I chose to call the book ORCHESTRATED, because, as Apuron's sex abuse empire began to crumble, I was accused by Apuron and his Neocat gestapo led by the now defrocked Fr. Adrian Cristobal and Fr. Edivaldo Olivera, of orchestrating this "gotterdamerung" for personal gain. 

They were right. It was orchestrated. It had to be. Apuron held all the power and there was no law at the time which would have allowed his victims to sue him. Meanwhile Apuron publicly threatened to sue his accusers, and specifically me:

"Tim Rohr and his associates launched a vicious and calumnious attack on the Archbishop...Those who are orchestrating this campaign are inciting people into hatred of the Archbishop and the Catholic Church...Therefore, the Archdiocese of Agana is in the process of taking canonical and legal measures against those perpetrating these malicious lies."- Archdiocese of Agana, Media Release, May 31, 2016

So yah, it was orchestrated. But while I was the orchestra conductor, Bob was the composer. So in memory of a great man with a great brain, I am sharing a draft of the Preface here. 

God bless you, Bob. Hundreds and probably thousands of innocent children, once buried by the clerics who hoped to bury their crimes forever, now have a voice, and hopefully, at last, justice.

ORCHESTRATED

Preface

In May and June of 2016, three men, then in their 50's, came forward to publicly accuse Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, then the Archbishop of Agana, Guam, of sexually molesting them when they were in their teens.

No one could predict that the testimony of these three would lead to what is, per capita, the largest clergy sex abuse scandal in the entire Catholic world. Three years after Roy Quintanilla, Walter Denton, and Roland Sondia testified on a city street in Hagatna (Agana), Guam, a reporter for the Pacific Daily News, a local paper, would write:

“Per capita, Guam has about 171 claims of clergy sex abuse per 100,000 people — well beyond the about 12 clergy sex abuse lawsuits per 100,000 people in Boston, whose clergy sex abuse scandal was portrayed in the movie, "Spotlight." The greater Boston area has a population of more than 4.7 million, compared with Guam's 163,000.”  - Eugenio Gilbert, H. 2019, Oct. 27. From a culture of silence to cover-ups: How Guam ended up with 280 clergy sex abuse claims. Pacific Daily News. 

In short, Guam’s clergy sex abuse scandal, at the time the archdiocese declared bankruptcy in 2019, was, per capita, fourteen times the size of the Boston scandal which inspired an Academy Award winning movie. 

How could this happen in an island community that was (and still is) deeply Catholic and fiercely familial? The short answer, for now, is because Guam is both deeply Catholic and fiercely familial.

Being “deeply Catholic,” locals, for decades, if not centuries, had what could be described as an almost superstitious reverence for the priest. The priest could do no wrong, and God help you if you accused the priest of wrongdoing. As I personally heard from several victims of clergy sex abuse, the mere mention of an impropriety by a priest was met with a slap in the face from a mother or even a grandmother, followed by a severe warning to “never talk about the priest that way again.”

Being "fiercely familial” would normally be considered a strength, a good thing. And it usually was. However, it also meant woe to whoever brought shame on the family. And so, even if parents knew or suspected their child’s story to be true, saving (family) face was the paramount principle, so the child was told to never speak of it again.

I am not speculating. I am repeating here in writing what I was told many times by clergy sex abuse victims who, even after many years, still spoke in hushed and fearful tones. 

Given the twisted reverence for the clergy and the cultural imperative of saving family face, it’s not hard to see how Guam’s children, particularly boys, became a “happy hunting ground” for perverted clerics for so many years. (Some lawsuits in the Guam debacle dated incidents back to the 1950’s.)

You might be thinking “those poor boys” (they were mostly boys), and you would be right. With your pastor raping you and then threating “no one will believe you” - as Walter Denton testified, and your mother punishing you for even mentioning such a thing - as Doris Concepcion testified, so many boys, hundreds that we know of only because they filed lawsuits, but probably thousands that we don’t know of, had nowhere to turn but on themselves, a fact tragically demonstrated in Doris Concepcion’s story, copied here in relevant part:

Concepcion said… her son started to act out, sometimes violently, when he was an altar boy in Agat.

“My son tried to stab (Apuron), attack him, and tried to burn the priest’s house down, and I would punish my son,” Concepcion said. “(My son) would just say,‘Am I the devil’s son, mom? Am I that bad?’ And he kept repeating that to me.”

She said her son…often talked about committing suicide and started to tell people he was Jewish. As an adult, he became addicted to drugs and would disappear for long periods of time, she said.

“I didn’t know (about the molestation) until my son was 38 years old when he passed away, and that’s when I found out,” Concepcion said.

“And he was molested and I was giving the priest, giving him permission to do it to my son. He was so afraid to tell me.”

Concepcion said she trusted Apuron at the time and believed in his every word.

“(Apuron) would ask me if he can have Sonny, because Sonny would do this and that, and he needs help around the rectory,

” Concepcion said. “And then he wants Sonny to spend the night with him so they can go and do something for the church, and he needed help. Sonny would retaliate, and say, ‘No, mama, I don’t wanna go,’and I would punish him. No, you have to go, because Father Apuron needs help.”

Concepcion said her son told her about being molested just as he was being taken into surgery in May 2005. He did not survive the procedure.

“He said, ‘Mom, I know I’m not the devil’s son.’ I said,‘No, you’re not’. And he said, ‘Come closer to me Mama, give me a hug.’ And I did," Concepcion said. And he said, ‘Mom, I was molested by Father Apuron.’ And I said,‘Who?’ He said,'Remember the priest in Agat? He molested me when I was an altar boy.’ And my heart just dropped, because he was dying. I didn’t even know.”

She never spoke to her son again. She said she tried to ask him if he had been raped by Apuron, but her son only gestured as he was being taken into surgery.

Eugenio, H. 2016, May 31. “Mother of deceased man accuses Apuron of molesting son.” Pacific Daily News.

Per Doris’ account, Sonny, until the day he died, nearly thirty years after Apuron raped him as a 9 year old, believed he was “the devil’s son:” that he, Joseph “Sonny” Quinata, was the evil one, the bad one, and not the clerical pervert who raped him. 

It’s not hard to see why Sonny Quinata turned to drugs and suicidal ideation. How many others did the same? Guam’s suicide rate is more than double the national average. And as far as I know, no one has ever attempted to connect the dots between what we now know is the dirtiest diocese in the world and Guam’s suicide hemmorage. Well, I’m connecting it.

As important as it is, investigating why this happened is not, here, my main objective. Rather, my objective is to recount - as much as I can remember - as the subtitle of this book sets out: “How a blog brought down an archbishop and exposed the largest clergy sex abuse scandal in the whole Catholic world.”

And beyond that, my hope is to share with the rest of the Catholic world the power that lay people actually have in rooting out this “filth in the Church” as Pope Benedict once deemed it. For, as far as I know, Guam is the only place in the Catholic world where the outing of both said “filth” and the clerics who propagated it, was wrought, not by lawyers, not by the media, not by the government, but by ordinary lay people who said “Hell no, we aren’t going to take it anymore,” and then did something about it.

So let’s begin.