ROME—An archbishop in Guam who was found guilty of sexual abuse of minors by a Vatican court and permanently removed from his post remains a priest with the rank of archbishop, underscoring wide inconsistencies in the Catholic Church’s approach to abuse around the world.

The sentence, in the latest abuse case involving senior Catholic hierarchy, contrasts with the recent expulsion from the clergy of a former archbishop of Washington, and shows that the “zero tolerance” approach to sex abuse adopted by U.S. bishops is far from the norm in the Catholic Church as a whole.

The Vatican announced Thursday that an appeals tribunal had confirmed last year’s verdict against Archbishop Anthony Apuron, finding him guilty of an unspecified number of counts of sexual abuse of minors. The decision is final and no further appeals are possible, the Vatican said.

“I am deeply saddened by the decision of the Holy Father to confirm the decision of the court,” Archbishop Apuron said in a statement provided by his lawyer. “I believe that the facts and evidence presented demonstrated my total innocence.”

The pope appointed an administrator to lead the Archdiocese of Agaña in 2016, when Archbishop Apuron was suspended after being accused of having abused altar boys when he was a priest. Subsequent charges against other priests have led to more than $100 million in lawsuits against the archdiocese, which filed for bankruptcy in January.


The Vatican confirmed that Archbishop Apuron had lost his post as leader of the archdiocese, which includes the entire territory of Guam, and was forbidden from residing there, even temporarily.

In addition to those penalties, which had been announced after the lower-court verdict last year, the Vatican said Archbishop Apuron will be prohibited from using the “insignia attached to the rank of bishop,” such as a miter, pectoral cross, ring or “zucchetto” skullcap.

But he will still be allowed to refer to himself as an archbishop and there are no other restrictions on his movements.

On Thursday, a prominent activist against clerical sex abuse voiced dissatisfaction with the sentence.


“The announced penalties for Apuron are belated and underwhelming. Why did this take so long, and why is he allowed to remain a priest?” said Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, a Boston-based group that tracks abuse cases. “The penalties are not proportional to the crimes.”

Guam is a territory of the U.S. in Micronesia, but the Archdiocese of Agaña isn’t part of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and therefore not covered by strict disciplinary rules for sex abuse enforced by U.S. bishops.

Those rules require the permanent removal from ministry—either through dismissal from the priesthood, commonly known as defrocking, or seclusion for life in “prayer and penance”—of any clergyman found guilty of even one instance of sexual abuse of a minor.

In February, Theodore McCarrick became the first cardinal in modern times to be defrocked after a church trial found the former archbishop of Washington guilty of sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct with adults.


The “one-strike” rule is the centerpiece of the “zero tolerance” approach to sex abuse that U.S. church leaders advocate for the church globally. But except in a handful of mostly English-speaking countries, few Catholic bishops have embraced such an approach and the Vatican hasn’t recommended it for the church at large.

Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com