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Saturday, February 11, 2023

The Love of Money

On February 9th, the Guam Daily Post published a story about one of the alleged victims of sexual abuse who filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese.  According to the Guam Daily Post:

"Nobody is praying for us. Nobody cares, man. Nobody cares. It is so sad. It's sad because I'm alive, I'm 50 and I could use that money. I could really use that money man," M.B., a clergy sexual abuse survivor, told The Guam Daily Post, days before he was on the brink of having his power cut off. 

 He wanted a letter from the archdiocese to submit to the utility, proof that he was waiting for money, in hopes that it would suffice to keep the power to his home on.....

Five years ago, M.B. received $150, 000 from the Capuchins as part of the settlement, but he has yet to receive a dime from the archdiocese. He questioned why. 

"How are you struggling if the Vatican is connected to you?" he asked. 

Despite receiving a portion of his settlement, he is in financial despair. He told the Guam Daily Post the money has all bee spent. 

"I used that $150,000 to make my kids happy. Everything. Bought them cars, all that stuff, because I'm coming with other money. I'm going to pay off the house and we're going to live good," he said. 

He received $150,000 and he still could not pay for his electric bill. And not one of his kids were willing to help their father pay the electric bills? After he spent so much making them happy? Just goes to show that money cannot help you pay the utilities you need most to keep your home running with electricity. Apparently, not even his children can help him even after receiving free vehicles. Perhaps, he should turn to God for help and let us see how that works out for him. Also, not one word of justice for the alleged victims. All the money went to his kids who did not suffer any child sexual abuse from the clergy.  

Many of these alleged victims came forward anonymously. They did not use their real names. Why? Because on this small island, almost everyone practically knows each other. Take, for example, Roy Quintanilla. He came forward with his real name accusing Bishop Anthony of sexually abusing him. Later, many former altar servers also came forward to testify that they have never seen Roy Quintanilla in the Agat parish. 

As I always stated numerous times, it has always been about money. Even Tim Rohr offered a challenge to the lawyers to give up 10% of the profit they made from the clergy child sex abuse cases. According to Tim Rohr (the bold is mine):

So here's a thought, given that the lawyers in the bankruptcy case have already pocketed around Nine Million Dollars off the backs of the common folk who did the heavy lifting in the first place, let's "suggest" that all lawyers involved in this matter give at least 10% of their booty back to the people they took it from - the people who created the opportunity for justice in the first place. 

Their checks can be made payable to Concerned Catholics of Guam, a registered Guam non-profit corporation, which will then, through its board and its members, determine how best to help their Church with those funds - since we can't trust anyone in the chancery to do it. 

And we can even have one of the newspaper photos with a large reproduction of the check being handed to the CCOG officials with large grins all around. 

Why not be honest and say that he does not trust Archbishop Michael Byrnes? After all, he is the Archbishop in charge of the chancery.     


  

1 comment:

  1. He could have payed to keep his power on. He HAD the money to do it. The church is not a bank account you can juice for doing whatever you want. Whether he was a real victim or not.
    That money came from donations of people who worked hard for their money. It’s ridiculous to misuse it and then cry for more and pretend that no one cares. What kind of cars did he buy his kids? Decent used ones or very unnecessary expensive new ones? If they were really expensive I’m sure they can resell them and use the profit to pay off his bill and buy cheaper used cars that work just fine. But they wouldn’t want to give those up in that case would they? He’s saying that no one cares but if no one did he wouldn’t have received so much in the first place. I say all this as someone who has my own financial struggles that forced me to be extremely cautious with how I use my money. Some of those struggles are the result of me not having been prudent in the past but I admit it was my own mistake and I take responsibility for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t pay it ON PURPOSE because he’s assuming he can just get more to pay for it. Which would be an indirect assault on the wallets of those who donate to the Archdiocese. Pure love of money is what this case smells of.

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