Haidee V Eugenio

Pacific Daily News (Guam)

HAGATNA, Guam — A former altar boy said a priest gave him his Boy Scouts of America swimming merit badge only after the priest subjected him to repeated sexual abuse in the 1970s, bringing to 23 the total number of clergy sexual abuse lawsuits filed on Guam, as of Monday.

Morgan Wade Paul, now 53 and living in Virginia, said former island priest Louis Brouillard sexually abused him as an 11- or 12-year-old boy scout and altar boy at the Mongmong Parish of Nuestra Senora De Las Aguas in or about 1975.

Paul, through attorney David Lujan, filed a lawsuit against Brouillard, the Archdiocese of Agana and up to 50 other unnamed entities who may have helped, abetted, concealed or covered up the priest abuse.

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The archdiocese now faces a minimum $115 million in damages in connection with the lawsuits, which could double in the weeks ahead as attorneys for other survivors confirmed they will be filing similar cases.

As an altar boy around 1975, Paul said he also was required to join the Boy Scouts. Brouillard was a scoutmaster in the Guam chapter of the Boy Scouts at the time.

The lawsuit says Paul was proud to be an altar boy and a member of the Boy Scout Troop 18 and was motivated to earn his swimming and lifesaving merit badges. But in the lawsuit, Brouillard wouldn’t give Paul a swimming merit badge until after the priest could sexually abuse him.

“After enduring Brouillard’s abuse twice a week for three to four weeks, Wade (Paul) received his swimming merit badge. Once Wade received his badge, he never went on another outing with Brouillard,” says the lawsuit, which details how Brouillard allegedly sexually abused the altar boy.

The lawsuit says Brouillard would take Paul to float in the deep side of Lonfit River in Ordot, grope his private parts and fondle him. The lawsuit says the boy kept pushing Brouillard’s hand away and tried to resist, but the priest kept grabbing at him.

Brouillard, now 95 and living in Minnesota, has publicly admitted to abusing at least 20 altar boys when he was on Guam from the late 1940s to 1981. The Archdiocese of Agana still provides him a monthly stipend.