Changing Stories

As you already know, Tim Rohr stated in his blog dated March 21, 2018 (the bold is mine): 

Let's make this very clear. An appeal is not an appeal when it is filed. An appeal is an appeal when the appellate court agrees to hear it. 

Today, Rohr has stated that there is no appeal and therefore, Archbishop Apuron is no longer the Archbishop of Agana.  He believes that title now belongs to the Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes.  However, this was never Rohr's initial belief when news of the verdict came out on March 16th.  According to news report dated March 16, 2018 (the bold is mine):

Tim Rohr, a member of the Catholic church on Guam who has been a longtime critic of Apuron, is one of the people who helped encourage Sondia and others to confront the archbishop. He said he’s also relieved by the verdict, but warns it’s not over yet.

“The sentence is suspended until the appeal is finalized,” Rohr said. “He is still Archbishop of Agana.”

Rohr made the above statement on March 16th, the day the verdict became public.  As I keep saying, Tim Rohr constantly changes his story.  

So, when did Rohr started to change his story????  It was on March 19th, the day that Coadjutor Archbishop Byrnes had his press conference with the media. On that same day before the press conference,  Rohr made it a point on his blog that Archbishop Apuron is referred as Bishop and that the Coadjutor Archbishop signed his name as "Archbishop of Agana" (See weblink here).  

Before the press conference, Rohr already knew ahead of time that the Coadjutor Archbishop had made up his mind to take the title for himself or was that a coincidence?  One has to wonder.  The Coadjutor Archbishop told news reporters that he ASSUMED that Archbishop Apuron is no longer the Archbishop of Agana.  According to news report (the bold is mine):

He said there had been no follow-up from the Vatican either as of March 17 and he assumed the former archbishop was now to be called Bishop Apuron, since losing the office of archbishop meant also losing the title associated with it.

“We’ll see with the appeal” what the final situation will be, he added.

Obviously, the Coadjutor Archbishop was fully aware that there was an appeals.  Since Archbishop Byrnes admitted that he had no follow-up from the Vatican, one then has to wonder why he made such an assumption especially when he was obviously aware of the appeal. Certainly, Archbishop Byrnes was not influenced by the Vatican who made no follow-up.  

Furthermore, the Vatican Press Release never mentioned Archbishop Byrnes.  In fact, the press release was never about him, but about the verdict.  So, the question is.......why assume that Archbishop Apuron no longer hold that title especially when that same Vatican Press Release clearly stated: In the case of an appeal, the imposed penalties are suspended until final resolution.  

Yes, it is interesting to note that Rohr's change of story came about the same time as Coadjutor Archbishop Byrnes' assumption. Rohr went further by stating that there was no appeal until the court agrees to hear it. However, the legal definition of appeal is:

1) v. to ask a higher court to reverse the decision of a trial court after final judgment or other legal ruling.

 2) n. the name for the process of appealing, as in "he has filed an appeal." 

And according to the Code of Canon Law on Appeals:

Can. 1630 §1. An appeal must be introduced before the judge who rendered the sentence within the peremptory period of fifteen useful days from the notice of the publication of the sentence. 

§2. If an appeal is made orally, the notary is to put it in writing in the presence of the appellant.

No where in canon law does it say that an appeal is an appeal when it is accepted by the court to hear it.  Therefore, Rohr did not get that idea of appeal from the code of canon law.  Nevertheless, the most important thing is that Tim Rohr changed his story, and this was not the first time he has done this.