Brief Chat
A year of surprises a
long way from Detroit
Archbishop Michael Byrnes gets one tough introduction to Guam
By Bruce Lloyd
It began with an overseas phone call to then aux-
iliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Michael
Judge Byrnes.
Archbishop Michael Byrnes: It was an al-
most complete and total shock. I was in England
on my way to a retreat down in Sussex, from
London to Sussex. And I was on a bus and got a
phone call from the [Papal?] Nuncio for the U.S.,
Archbishop Christof Pierre is his name, I recog-
nized, OK, it’s a Washington, D.C. number.
Bruce Lloyd: 202?
MB: So, the only people I know there, it’s
probably the Nuncio and sure enough it was,
and he said, “Are you alone?” Well, I was seated
by myself. There was nobody next to me, so I
said, “kinda.” So, he went right into it, saying the
Holy Father wants to appoint you as Coadjutor
Archbishop of Guam. And he went on and on
explaining, seemed like he was a little nervous,
at least that was my impression. I said, “The Holy
Father wants to appoint
me?” And he said, yes.
So, I said, I’ll do it, if you
can tell me what we
need to do.
He said, “First of all,
you’ve got to go to Rome
because, Cardinal Filoni,
the head of the Evange-
lization of Peoples, says
the Holy Father wants
to meet the gentleman
who will be the priest
and the bishop who
will go to Guam.”
So, we had to make
arrangements and I
flew back to the U.S.
and then in about
two days, I flew to
Rome.
BL: People who
live here or have
been here for a
long time tend to think of Guam as the center
of the universe. I’m curious though, within the
church, had you ever heard anything of these
controversies?
MB: No. Absolutely not. I knew maybe where
Guam was.
BL: What struck you first when you got here?
MB: The first memory I have
was flying in, flying by the
island and thinking,
“This is small.” There
were a lot of lights.
That was cool
because people
back in Detroit
were saying, “Oh
my gosh, you’re
going to Guam.”
They were think-
ing I was going to
live like in a grass
hut. I said, “no, no,
no.” The city of De-
troit, with
two of the larger suburbs, that would be the size
of Guam. My first impression was that it is small,
but as I’ve come to live here and explore, in
Detroit, there’re no mountains. We’ve got moun-
tains here! [Laughs] And we’ve got an ocean. And
lakes.
This was good news for Archbishop Byrnes, an
enthusiastic swimmer, who soon grew to love the
Pacific Ocean.
MB: I swim over at Ypao Beach at least once
a week, sometimes twice. I use the pool down
here [Hagatna], too. So I’ve done some swim-
ming and some hiking. I’ve gone to Tarzan Falls.
Did a nice hike up in Ritidian with a guide, Nash
Camacho, into some of the latte sites.
Stateside relatives have visited and the arch-
bishop has struck up friendships with some local
families, “so yeah, it’s becoming a lot like home.”
But the sexual abuse cases and the lingering effects
of years of mishandled diocesan finances have
consumed much of the archbishop’s intensive work
schedule.
At the time of Archbishop Byrnes’ arrival on
Guam, ten clergy sexual abuse cases had been filed
in local courts. That figure now exceeds 140. Based
on his previous experience in the stat es, the arch-
bishop said even a single case often suggests
there are more to be revealed.
MB: The very first day I landed here,
got in at 1 a.m., and that’s when I had a
chance to sleep a little. At 10 a.m., I met
with the priests and then at 1 p.m., I met
with the lawyers. My memory is a little
hazy, but my first recollection is being
told, “the lawyers are here and you’ve
got to talk to them.” Of course, it was a
different set of lawyers than we have
now. The first set of lawyers helped
us, but we finally discerned a differ-
ent path, more of a mediation, set-
tlement kind of path, so I’m much
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