‘So much I could have done better’
No charges for priest named in 124 sex abuse cases
PINE CITY, Minn. – Statues of the Virgin Mary and portraits of Jesus loom over Louis Brouillard in his small apartment. He lives alone, two blocks from an elementary school and across the street from a Catholic preschool — close enough to hear children’s laughter when they play at recess.
The retired priest no longer wears a collar, but the people in this small town an hour north of Minnesota’s Twin Cities still call him “Father.” He is 96 years old.
Brouillard’s peaceful life stands in stark contrast to the torment of 122 men and two women — all middle-age or retired — who accuse him of sexually molesting them as children on the island of Guam. They have broken long-held silences and filed lawsuits. Some have protested and begged for justice. Some have left the church.
As of May 4, there were 166 child sex abuse lawsuits on Guam filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America, 19 clergy members,
“While in Guam my actions were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner who had approached me to talk about the situation. I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance.”
Louis Brouillard
including Brouillard and others affiliated with the church on the island. Brouillard’s attorney, Thomas Wieser, declined to talk about the cases.
Scout Executive/CEO Jeff Sulzbach of the Boy Scouts of America Aloha Council wrote in an email that the organization barred Brouillard from participation in the Scouting program when it learned of the allegations. The Boy Scouts would not confirm Brouillard’s time as a Scout leader.
“The allegations about Father Brouillard run counter to everything for which the BSA stands,” Sulzbach wrote in an email.
Only one of the accused has filed a response to the lawsuits. Attorneys for the church, Brouillard and others have been laying the groundwork for mediation, scheduled for September, and eventual settlements.
Brouillard was deposed over several days in November, and sworn statements are being taken from plaintiffs in the cases.
Brouillard is the only person accused in the lawsuits who has publicly admitted to abusing children while on Guam.
A confession but no charges
He confessed his transgressions in an affidavit in 2016 obtained by an investigator and filed with many of the lawsuits.
Brouillard faces no criminal charges for his acts, nor can he be charged under Guam law. The statute of limitations has long expired. The Archdiocese of Agana pays for Brouillard’s legal representation.
“I did touch the penises of some of the boys and some of the boys did perform oral sex on me,” Brouillard wrote in the affidavit. “There may have been 20 or more boys involved.”
He said encounters may have taken place at the Catholic schools where he taught. “At the time, I did believe that the boys enjoyed the sexual contact and I also had self-gratification as well.”
Brouillard said in the affidavit that he had been found out decades before and had confessed to a superior.
“While in Guam my actions were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner who had approached me to talk about the situation. I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” Brouillard said.
Some of the accusers said that they or their parents reported the abuse. Church officials, they said, turned them away.
‘Personal problems’
In 1981, Brouillard was sent to Minnesota for “help with his personal problems,” Kyle Eller, communication director for the Diocese of Duluth, said in a statement last year.
Brouillard served in three churches in remote parts of Minnesota — Beroun, Keewatin and Kelly Lake, according to the diocese.
Three of the lawsuits filed on Guam last year accuse Brouillard of paying to bring boys from Guam to Minnesota, where he continued to abuse them.
One of the lawsuits alleges he moved a boy into a two-bedroom retirement home apartment in Pine City where he lived with his elderly parents. Brouillard would have been about 60.
In Pine City, Brouillard has a simple altar under his front window where he performs Mass for himself. Sometimes he gets tired of standing and takes breaks during his own Masses.
Brouillard receives a $550 stipend from the Guam archdiocese each month.
For more than 20 years, he volunteered for a Meals on Wheels shift at the Pine City Senior Center, waking at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday to prepare food and serve it to other seniors.
The former priest is frail. He has wispy gray hair. A single tooth protrudes from his upper gums.
His life is simple. He watches religious programs and cartoons on TV. He reads on his porch. Twice a week, he ventures out to attend church and shop.
When a reporter stopped by Brouillard’s home in October, Brouillard’s lawyer turned her away. Wieser described his client as “vulnerable.”
But Brouillard wanted to chat when the reporter returned in March. He called for her to enter when she knocked on the door. The priest, wearing long johns with a blanket draped over his lap, told her to wait a moment for him to insert “his ears,” as he called his hearing aids, so they could talk.
As the talk turned to his alleged actions on Guam, Brouillard expressed regret. He admitted touching the boys but said he didn’t know it would be harmful to both the boys and the church.
“I’m sorry for all that happened. I regarded them as my friends. In fact, I still do,” Brouillard said. “As youths, they were appreciative of what I could do for them.
“There’s so much I could have done better,” he said. “I’m afraid I was thinking more of what I wanted to do, rather than what God called me to do.”
Brouillard said he was unconcerned about a potential trial — “I let the lawyer worry about that” — and leaves his fate to God.
“I’ve learned in my long life that I leave everything in the hands of God, because he’s after all, my destiny. Whatever he wills is my will,” he said.