Pope Francis has named an administrator for the Archdiocese of Agãna, on the Pacific island of Guam after its archbishop was accused of sexually abusing young boys decades ago.
He is Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai.
Hon Tai-Fai is currently secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a position he has held since 2010.
He had previously been professor of Theology at the Holy Spirit Seminary of Hong Kong.
Administrators are often named to run archdioceses temporarily until a new archbishop is named.
Apuron, has been the Archbishop of the Agãna archdiocese for 30 years.
He says he welcomes the appointment of an administrator
In late May, the Apuron traveled to the Vatican.
He was still in Rome on June 6 when the Vatican press office announced Pope Francis had appointed the administrator.
In a video, recorded in St. Peter’s Square, addressed the people of his archdiocese Apuron said he said he was pleased the Pope had responded to his request for the appointment of a temporary administrator.
He said he was still the archbishop of Agãna and is a victim of horrible calumnies.
Apuron has accused a deacon, Stephen Martinez, of being part of a conspiracy to oust him over a soured property deal.
Three days before the appointment of the administrator, the Archdiocese of Agãna issued a statement announcing it had hired a US-based lawyer and investigator to look into and possibly respond to comments about the archbishop made by Deacon Martinez.
Martinez was the coordinator of the archdiocese sexual abuse response team until 2014.
“To state, as Stephen Martinez did, that the sexual abuse policy of the archdiocese was kept weak purposefully by the archbishop to protect himself is a calumny of such magnitude that the only avenue, which we are following, is recourse to the civil and canonical legal processes to address these intentional lies,” the archdiocese’s statement said.
The statement added that Martinez also had been the archdiocesan finance officer, a position the statement claimed he handled with “glaring incompetence.”
Last week the Vatican announced that the pope had signed off on new measures to remove bishops who fail to respond to abuse allegations.
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News category: Asia Pacific.
