Pages

16 February 2017

Sex Abuse Charges Against Priests in Guam Spread to CNMI

A retired bishop in the Northern Marianas has been accused of sex abuse against an altar boy. The charges date back to 1971, when Tomas Camacho served as a priest in Guam and, as we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, it’s just the latest in a long series of accusations.
By this point, the outline of the charges looks very familiar.  According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Guam, Melvin Duenas alleges that he was abused from the age of ten, when he was chief altar boy at St. Joseph Catholic Church, where Tomas Camacho served as a priest. The abuse only stopped, when Duenas ran away from the rectory sometime in 1974 or ‘75.