GUAM – A Vatican tribunal has found the archbishop of Guam, Anthony Apuron, guilty of “certain accusations” related to the sexual abuse of minors.

Apuron was accused of assaulting altar boys when he was a parish priest on Guam in the 1970s.

In its ruling issued last week, the Apostolic Tribunal stripped Apuron of office and prohibited him from returning to Guam.

The church on Guam continues to face a barrage of controversy, with more than 150 lawsuits filed against the church and several other priests for abuses that stretched from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

The Vatican didn’t say what exactly Archbishop Anthony Apuron had been convicted of, and the sentence was far lighter than those given high-profile elderly prelates found guilty of molesting minors.

A statement from the tribunal which handles sex abuse cases, said Apuron had been convicted of some of the accusations against him.

Critics say the Vatian’s decision amounts to an early retirement notice. Apuron is 72, while the Vatican retirement age is 75.

Within hours of the ruling, Apuron, maintaining his innocence, said he plans to rule against the ruling.

He will keep his office while the appeals process continues.

“While I am relieved that the tribunal dismissed the majority of the accusations against me, I have appealed the verdict,” said a statement from Apuron distributed by his Guam attorney, Jacqueline Terlaje. “

God is my witness – I am innocent and I look forward to proving my innocence in the appeals process.”

Pope Francis named a temporary administrator for Guam in 2016 after Apuron was accused by former altar boys of sexually abusing them when he was a priest.

Dozens of cases involving other priests on the island have since come to light, and the archdiocese is facing more than $115 million in civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests.

Apuron has strongly denied the charges from the outset and said he was a victim of a “calumny” campaign. He has not been criminally charged as the statute of limitations had expired.

Under an appeal, the penalties will be suspended until the case is resolved.

In the past, when an elderly or infirm priest has been convicted by the Vatican of sexually abusing minors, he has often been removed from ministry and sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer.”

Younger priests convicted of abuse have been defrocked, removed from ministry or forbidden from presenting themselves as priests.

In the case of Apuron, no restrictions on his ministry as a priest were announced.

Apuron is one of the highest-ranking Catholic churchmen to be convicted by a Vatican sex abuse tribunal, and his rank as archbishop may have played a role in his seemingly light sentence.

One of the former altar servers who accused Apuron of molesting him said he felt relieved by the Vatican’s announcement.

“The verdict was what we were hoping for,” Roland Sondia said from Guam. “I think the fact that he won’t be able to return to the island is justice.”

Sondia had come forward publicly identifying himself as one of Apuron’s accusers.

The attorney for the victims making a claim for compensation said he was overjoyed with the outcome. “We’re ecstatic. It’s a justified verdict,” said David Lujan.

Current Guam Archbishop Michael Byrnes issued a statement also praising the decision.

“It is a monumental marker in our journey toward healing as one Church, one people in God. I pray that all people would embrace this call for healing,” Byrnes said

In 2015 Apuron urged Catholics to uphold the church’s teaching on marriage, calling homosexual activity an “intrinsically moral evil”.

“Homosexual condition or tendency is a disorder,” Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron said. “Many hate the church for saying that, but if the act is intrinsically a moral evil, we cannot say the tendency is neutral or good. If then, we don’t call it a disorder.”

“When we take God away from the source of human identity, then we are lost,” he said. “As citizens and as a people of faith, we have the duty to be informed about the very fundamental nature of marriage and we are called to defend the very dignity of marriage as a loving and fruitful union of one man and one woman.” - PNC