“They dress the wound of my peopleas though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 8:11-12) The following article about a sexual predator priest on Guam well illustrates how lightly the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has historically treated sexual molesting priests and other higher-ups in the RCC.  This problem is nothing new. It likely goes back hundreds of years, if not all the way back to the beginning of the church. Why?

Priest accused in 124 Guam sex abuse cases ages quietly, alone

Statues of the Virgin Mary and portraits of Jesus loom over Louis Brouillard in his small apartment. He lives alone, two blocks from Pine City Elementary School and across the street from St. Mary’s Catholic preschool — close enough to hear children’s laughter when they play at recess.

The retired priest no longer wears a collar, but the people in this small town an hour north of Minnesota’s Twin Cities still call him “Father.” He is 96 years old.

Brouillard’s peaceful life stands in stark contrast to the torment of 122 men and two women – all middle-age or retired now — who accuse him of sexually molesting them as children on the island of Guam. They have broken long-held silences and filed lawsuits. Some have protested and begged for justice. Somehave left the church.

A long time ago, some of them complained. Brouillard confessed, and was told to pray and try harder. Eventually, the island’s Catholic church simply sent Brouillard away.

The priest is frail now. He has wispy gray hair. A single tooth protrudes from his upper gums. But once, he was young and robust, a leader of the Boy Scouts and a respected figure on Guam.

As of May 4, there were 166 child sex abuse lawsuits on Guam filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America, 19 clergy members including Brouillard and others affiliated with the church on the island. Brouillard’s attorney, Thomas Wieser, declined to talk about the cases.

Only one of the accused has filed a response to the lawsuits. Attorneys for the church, Brouillard and others have been laying the groundwork for mediation, scheduled for September, and eventual settlements. Brouillard was deposed over several days in November, and sworn statements are being taken from plaintiffs in the cases.

Brouillard is the only person accused in the lawsuits who has publicly admitted to abusing children while on Guam.

To escape the nearly constant humidity, island kids craved outings to the swimming holes filled with cool fresh water rolling over limestone and volcanic rock. Brouillard would teach the boys to swim.

One of those boys is identified in one of the 124 lawsuits as R.A.S.

In 1955, Brouillard was a parish priest at the Santa Teresita Church in Mangilao. R.A.S, the lawsuit recounts, was 10 or 11 then, and an altar boy who thought he might one day become a priest. Brouillard asked the boy’s parents if the child could help around the church.

In those days, few island Catholics would think to question the church or the intentions of its priest. The boy’s parents “gave consent without the slightest of doubt,” the lawsuit states.

In the lawsuit,  R.A.S. accuses Brouillard of fondling him. The priest also made the boy masturbate him, the lawsuit says. When he was done, he gave the boy “a jock-strap and a bunch of coins, and instructed R.A.S. not to tell his parents.”

Another time, the priest took R.A.S. and some other boys to swim, the lawsuit recounts. Brouillard told the boys to remove their clothes. R.A.S. refused and went into the water fully clothed.

Brouillard, R.A.S. claims in the lawsuit, groped him during the swimming lesson, and when he tried to get away Brouillard held his head underwater.

 After that incident, according to the lawsuit, “R.A.S. lost his faith in the church, quit being an altar boy and was no longer interested in the priesthood. To this day, R.A.S. refused to go to church.”

Others tell eerily similar stories in the lawsuits. The stories span several decades and they often recall a favorite spot at the Lonfit River, a remote waterway that cuts through Guam’s central jungle as it flows from the hills.

Some boys recall Boy Scout camp-outs that took an ugly turn, the lawsuits said.

At that time on Guam, the church required altar boys to join the Boy Scouts. In an affidavit filed with the court in Guam, Brouillard described “managing the Boy Scouts, where I served as president for the Scouts on Guam.”

Felix Manglona’s lawsuit describes his time as an altar boy and Boy Scout in 1971 when he was 13. He recalled Brouillard walking naked around the church rectory and showing the boys pornography.

Manglona accuses Brouillard of assaulting him at a Boy Scout campout as the priest went from tent to tent conducting a head count. Brouillard, the lawsuit says, performed oral sex on the boy and his tentmate.

Years later, when Manglona was a police cadet, he recalled seeing a complaint involving Brouillard and a minor boy at another church. Now, decades later, any complaints are lost to time. The statute of limitations has expired and police on Guam said last year they could locate no records involving Brouillard nor could they confirm that any parents or children ever filed a complaint.

Scout Executive/CEO Jeff Sulzbach of the Boy Scouts of America Aloha Council wrote in an email that the organization barred Brouillard from participation in the scouting program when it learned of the allegations. The Boy Scouts will not confirm Brouillard’s time as a scout leader.

“The allegations about Father Brouillard runs counter to everything for which the BSA stands,” Sulzbach wrote in an email.

Not all of the accusers were altar boys or Scouts.

In 1971, a boy identified as B.J. in his lawsuit, was hanging out with friends in front of a store when Brouillard pulled up in his Volkswagen. He told the boys he was a priest and a scoutmaster, and offered to teach the boys to swim at the Lonfit River.

 At the swimming hole, Brouillard removed his clothes and told the boys to do the same, B.J., who was 11 or 12 at the time, recalls feeling uncomfortable, but pushed those feelings aside because he “was just happy that Brouillard invited (him) to go swimming, because opportunities like this didn’t happen very often for (him),” the lawsuit said. Afterward, Brouillard took the boys out to eat.

 B.J. recalls another trip to the river — this time just he and Brouillard under the pretense that the priest would teach him survival skills, the lawsuit recounts. Brouillard allegedly tied the boy up and performed oral sex on him. Then, the priest gave him water.

 “B.J. believes that there was something in the water, because after drinking it B.J. began to feel weird,” the lawsuit states.

Brouillard then forced B.J. to perform oral sex on him, the lawsuit states, then raped him repeatedly.

 When Brouillard finally untied the boy, he explained that the act was similar to confession — just between them and God.

Prayers as penance

Indeed, Brouillard eventually confessed his transgressions in a 2016 affidavit obtained by an investigator and filed with many of the lawsuits.

Brouillard faces no criminal charges for his acts, nor can he be charged under Guam law. The statute of limitations has long expired. The Archdiocese of Agana is paying for Brouillard’s legal representation.

“I did touch the penises of some of the boys and some of the boys did perform oral sex on me,” Brouillard wrote in theaffidavit. “There may have been 20 or more boys involved.”

He said encounters may have also taken place at the Catholic schools where he taught. “At the time, I did believe that the boys enjoyed the sexual contact and I also had self-gratification as well.”

That affidavit, however, contained a startling revelation. Brouillard said in the affidavit that he had been found out decades before and had confessed to a superior.

“While in Guam my actions were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner, who had approached me to talk about the situation. I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” Brouillard said.

Some of the men also say that as boys, they or their parents reported the abuse. Church officials, they say, turned them away.

In 1981, Brouillard was sent to Minnesota for “help with his personal problems,” said Kyle Eller, communications director for the Diocese of Duluth, in a statement last year.

Brouillard served in three churches in remote parts of Minnesota — Beroun, Keewatin and Kelly Lake, according to the diocese.

“In 1985, Father Bouillard’s faculties to serve as a priest in the Duluth Diocese were revoked after questions were raised about a guest from Guam staying with him,” Eller said.

Brouillard “was not necessarily someone that would stand out. He would not be one of those priests that we would have any kind of affinity toward,” Sablan said. He didn’t learn of the accusations against Brouillard until 2016.

That lackadaisical attitude in class also governed his appearance, former parishioner Francisco T. San Nicolas said. He recalls Brouillard’s days at San Isidro Church in the rural community of Malojloj in the mid-1970s.

Brouillard wore shirts with holes or stains and mismatched sandals, even those he would find at the beach, so long as his feet were protected, San Nicolas said. He dressed up only for Mass. And he always wanted to be outside and liked swimming, San Nicolas said.

Robert Patrick S. Palomo, now 63, was a seminarian who decided not to become a priest after studying with Brouillard. “I started seeing things that I knew were wrong,” said Palomo, who is not among those who filed lawsuits.

He said Brouillard would ask detailed questions about masturbation during confession. “He didn’t physically abuse me, but mentally, he was abusive.”

He said he and other students suspected Brouillard was engaged in inappropriate activity. While he never shared his suspicion with his parents, he warned younger boys not to go on swimming trips with the priest, and he told his cousins not to join the Boy Scouts.

As the talk turned to his alleged actions on Guam, Brouillard was full of regret. He admitted touching the boys, but said he didn’t know at the time it would be harmful to both the boys and the church.

“I’m sorry for all that happened. I regarded them as my friends. In fact, I still do,” Brouillard said. “As youths, they were appreciative of what I could do for them.

 “There’s so much I could have done better,” he said. “I’m afraid I was thinking more of what I wanted to do, rather than what God called me to do.”

He is unconcerned about a potential trial — “I let the lawyer worry about that,” he says — and leaves his fate to God.

“I’ve learned in my long life that I leave everything in the hands of God, because he’s after all, my destiny,” Brouillard said. “Whatever he wills is my will.”

—USA Today, May 5, 2018

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:1-3)

The RCC’s forbidding priests to marry, as foretold, is the main root of the problem. On top of that, molesting priests and other higher-ups have been shielded by the RCC from blame. In fact, they, have in the past at least, enjoyed special protection by the church. As this article points out, when the victims or their parents reported such abuse to RCC officials, they, the ones reporting, were treated as the problem, or trouble-makers.

“Gather yourselves, you shameful nation.” (Zephaniah 2:1)

“I will destroy every remnant of Baal worship in this place, the very names of idolatrous priests.” (Zephaniah 1:4)

While the RCC has certainly made some effort toward correcting the problem of sexual predators in the church, the problem has been so entrenched for so long, that it still can’t quite really come to grips with it! God’s view of the RCC can’t be good, since he doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6). The RCC has certainly done some good things, such feeding the poor, etc.

“When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening.” (Isaiah 1:15)

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22) God wants obedience primarily, before sacrifice can be acceptable. The RCC has not met his standard in this regard.

“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong.” (Isaiah 1:16) 

CONCLUSION

The RCC has not ‘defended the oppressed, or taken up the cause of the fatherless’  (James 1:27) in the deeply entrenched filth of sexual molestation that has for so long infected the RCC. 

The above article about a Catholic sexual predator priest well illustrates the long-time widespread problem of sexual predation within the RCC.