I heard again today that some think the coming forward of the victims was "orchestrated." Of course it was orchestrated.
I had to be terribly careful with said victims. I knew what (Archbishop) Apuron would do to them. I knew he'd threaten them just like he did when he molested and raped their tender souls and bodies. We knew he'd say "no one will believe you." And in fact, that is exactly what he said in a different way 40 years later, except this time he accused them of spreading "malicious lies and calumnies" and threatened to sue them into silence.
I knew he would do this. So I had to work long and hard. I had to find money. I had to find an attorney who would protect them. I had to gain their trust. l had to organize, organize, organize. Even now, I have to see to their care and protection SINCE THE CHURCH STILL WON'T.
These were horribly damaged boys who had carried their long nightmare into a tormented adulthood, a suffering that was deeply visible on the faces and in the voices of those who stood before us, including the mother of a now dead boy. A boy whose life might have been very different but for what Apuron did to him when he was nine years old. A boy who might be alive today, and a mother who instead of caving into tears at the mere thought of what she unknowingly permitted, might break into a great smile at the thought of a very much alive son who blessed her with grandchildren.
You don't just throw people who have suffered so long and so hard out there and say go for it. Months of conversations and care had to happen first. And right up to the last minute, it was still up to them if they wanted to go public or not. I was quite willing to assist them. For all they wanted to do at the time was to simply deliver their statements to Apuron and to the appropriate Roman authorities. In fact, that was the plan.
But then something changed. Something happened.
Someone in the chancery released a statement on May 13, 2016 listing two pages of accusations against the laity who had been speaking up against Apuron's offenses. The statement said that in response to our speaking up, the Archbishop would be seeking legal action against us. Of specific interest to the victims was this:
These ads were paid for by the Concerned Catholics of Guam (CCOG) according to media statements by Gregory Perez and, as admitted by Tim Rohr, with the intent to target specifically the Archbishop. This demonstrates that they have no proof to substantiate any allegations and that their purpose is to confuse and mislead the people or, even, to induce some to bring false testimony.
The "ads" of course was this one:
READ THAT AGAIN: "...they have no proof to substantiate any allegations and that their purpose is to confuse and mislead the people or, even, to induce some to bring false testimony."
Well these men had "proof," and 40 years of it. And any thought of keeping this a private matter disappeared. It was time to call out this horrible man who had mutilated them, body and soul. It was time to present THE TRUTH.
Four days later, Roy Quintanilla came forward.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I wanted to present the back story to this. Because, you see, I never intended to find these victims of Anthony S. Apuron. Instead, they found me. And little did I know, that this was what Apuron feared when he went to Rome to try to shut me up. Yes. Went to Rome.
Here's what happened.
The page-views and comments were beginning to pile up. It was a combination of both Apuron's sadistic treatment of Fr. Paul and the disturbing fact that someone was actually willing to go public about the evil acts of one, Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron.
At the time I didn't know that Apuron had been (and maybe still was/is) a serial child molester. * I had heard rumors for several years, but paid little attention to them. The Father Paul story continued to get more horrific and my page-views began to climb and climb. Apparently Apuron had never had anyone call him out in public before, and, in hindsight, I can see that he foresaw THE DANGER.
* Later, clinically speaking, it can be said that Apuron was not molesting "children." Legally "children" are persons under 18 years of age, But biologically and clinically, "children" are prepubescent persons. All of Apuron's reported victims were post-pubescent, i.e. adolescents (biological adults), which makes Apuron's alleged acts against these legal minors, homosexual acts, not pedophilia. (Note: Ephebophilia is the clinical name.)
And here it is:
Apuron knew that his perverted past had to be known. But he counted on the same "no one will believe you" he used on those boys to keep adults quiet as well. As long as his evil acts remained only whispered, he could continue to prance and flutter about, pretending to be the pope of Guam, singing "No one can touch me, No one can touch me. Nah, nah nah, nah, nah, ...!
But then came JungleWatch, and someone who wasn't afraid of his High and Mighty-ness.
Apuron hadn't counted on that.
+++++
Things got out of hand quickly. If there was a public forum for all the people he had hurt over so many years, especially a forum where people could comment without being known...then Apuron knew he was in trouble.
+++++
I didn't know it at the time, but those initial postings about what he did to Fr. Paul were the beginning of the end for 'Tony' (Apuron). In fact, it was just the beginning of his own "
arduous and painful closure to his assignment" - words he had used to threaten Fr. Paul only a few months before.
Tony had to do something. So he did.
On October 10, 2013, I got a "shut up and sit down" letter from a Cardinal Edwin O'Brien.
Apuron apparently thought that I was like him, that being "important" mattered. The Order into which I had (then) only recently been initiated (Sep. 2012) is an important Order in the Church and it is considered an honor to be a member.
But I wasn't about to sacrifice the truth for a club membership. So in fact, not only did I laugh this off, I bombarded Cardinal O'Brien with two letters full of details about Apuron's horrific
reign of terror. You can read more about that
here.
You might say that Apuron himself opened up the door, permitting the first details about his evil reign to leak into Rome.
By the way, I never heard from O'Brien again.
I had some fun with this letter, showing it to friends over beer many nights down at The Mermaid Tavern. I mean, who else gets a letter from Vatican City? But the more I thought about it, the more I began to suspect that something was up. This was way over the top. This was way out of proportion to what I was doing. I mean, really? He went to Rome to take me - a nobody with a little blog - down? What?
Hmmmmm.
The Fr. Paul affair descended into an absolute nightmare, climaxing with Tony's (Apuron's) sick, run-off-at-the-mouth, filthy speech to the clergy on retreat at Tagaytay, Philippines (October 2013) wherein he inferred that Fr. Paul had built a secret stairway to his room to facilitate drunken midnight homosexual trysts. You can listen to it
here.
The story continued to get worse and worse. The diocese was coming apart and the war was going public. In fact, one could write a book about it. In fact, I DID write a book about it.
Get your free copy
here. Or you can read it on the blog
here.
After about January 2014 or so, things began to die down a bit, and I thought the story would go away. I remember one day thinking: "Well that's that!" Nothing more I can do. And lo and behold, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and gave us THE DIANA! LOL.
This thing was dead in the water, but "The Diana" (A Neocat Blog), with her absolutely insane pronouncements and perspectives, breathed new life into what was pretty much dead and the war was on again.
The arguments between our two blogs exploded and so did my page-views. Things began to mount and mount, the noise grew louder and louder, and finally Rome took note, sending Archbishop Martin Krebs, the Apostolic Nuncio to this region, to Guam in mid July 2014 to see what all the ruckus was about.
This is when Fr. John Wadeson decided to come out of the closet. Poor Fr. Wadeson, he had no idea I was waiting for him.
I had gotten a recording of the clergy meeting with Archbishop Krebs. And the recording revealed some pretty horrid things. I published the recording and Wadeson decided to slap me down for my publishing of the recording. I then blasted Wadeson with a ten year old report showing that he was twice credibly accused for molesting minors in Los Angeles.
All hell broke loose and Apuron (attempting to save his own ...) threw Wadeson under the bus. You can read all the posts related to The Wandering Wadeson
here.
And then came the Msgr. James thing.
On July 25, 2014, Msgr. James Benavente was called to Apuron's office where he was read a list of charges against him. No warning. No sit down let's work this out. No attempt to paternally correct. Just the accusations, the accusations, the accusations, and no opportunity for Msgr. James to even engage said accusations or even get a copy of them. The next day, the evil stepsisters, Msgr. David C. Quitugua and then-Fr. Adrian Cristobal, showed up on Msgr. James' door step and handed him his "get the hell out of here" decrees.
Apparently that was the final straw. People blew up, including someone over in San Francisco named John Toves.
I remember the morning John left a comment on my blog accusing Apuron of molesting his "relative."
I didn't publish it because he didn't leave his name. I posted back that I needed his name to publish the comment. He posted back: "My name is John Charles Ada Toves." I realized that this was too important for just a series of comments on the blog. I struck up an ongoing conversation with John Toves over the next few months - a conversation that led to John's coming to Guam to take his accusations directly to "Tony" (Archbishop Apuron) himself.
John Toves was adamant about what Apuron did to his "relative." After I learned his relative's name, I remembered that I had heard the rumors many times. John's "relative" still prefers to let the past be the past so we are not going to go there. But as some on Guam may remember, things got nuts during December of 2014, leading to the infamous "
for sure for sure" interview, which you can enjoy
here. For more on the fun with Apuron and Toves see
Apuron vs Toves.
Apuron probably messed his pants when John Toves showed up. Nevertheless, Apuron probably figured he was still safe so long as the actual victim never came forward...and Apuron knew he wouldn't - and he was right.
But John Toves was dangerous in another way.
Toves was an altar boy...an altar boy in Agat, an altar boy who had been one of the altar boys during Apuron's days in Agat in the 1970's.
Toves knew Walter, Roy, Roland, Sonny, and many more. If news got out that John Toves was in town and making noise about Apuron molesting boys, Apuron had to know that this was not good. Old skeletons might come alive. And the old skeletons did start to shake, but they would not put flesh on for several months.
Meanwhile, though, the pressure on Apuron - brought on by John Toves - once again shook Rome awake, and they paid us a visit the following month in January 2015.
It took a few months for that to happen. Meanwhile, Diana kept things lively and drove the blog bigger and bigger, louder and louder.
