Archdiocese Shows Ownership Title for Former Hotel

Pacific Daily News
November 30, 2015

http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2015/11/29/archdiocese-shows-ownership-title-former-hotel/76542788/

The Redemptoris Mater Archdiocese Missionary Seminary of Guam in Yona.

The group Concerned Catholics of Guam has argued that Archbishop Anthony Apuron gave control of the Yona seminary to the Neocatechumenal Way, but the church has released land documents to dispute that claim.

The archbishop of the Archdiocese of Agana, as the “corporation sole,” holds the title to the former Accion Hotel, which is currently being used as a seminary, according to a document released by the Archdiocese of Agana last weekend.

“The archbishop of Agana is the legal and sole owner of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of Guam in Yona -- (formerly) Hotel Accion property,” a statement from the archdiocese, approved by Msgr. David Quitugua, the archdiocesan vicar general, states. The statement was released in the Nov. 29 edition of the Umatuna Si Yu’os, the archdiocese’s newspaper.

The archdiocese released the property’s certificate of title, which was issued by the Department of Land Management on Oct. 30, 2015, following publicly expressed concerns from Concerned Catholics of Guam that Apuron may have signed a document that might have placed the property under the control of the leaders of the Neocatechumenal Way.

Archbishop Apuron. (Photo: Courtesy Archdiocese of Agana)

Guam’s Catholic community has seen public disagreements between those who follow the Neocatechumenal Way movement and those who want to keep the old traditions of the Guam Catholic church.

A May 13, 2015 legal opinion by a Guam law firm hired by Concerned Catholics found that a deed executed by Archbishop Apuron — in November of 2011, was “an absolute conveyance in fee simple” of the property from the Archbishop of Agana, a corporation sole, to the Redemptoris Mater House of Formation, a Guam non-pro?t corporation known as the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, according to previously released information from Concerned Catholics.

The former hotel was at one time estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. When the oceanside hotel shut down, an anonymous donor bought the property and donated it to the archdiocese.

The archdiocesan newspaper also reported that Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church, has stated that Apuron “continues to maintain authority over the seminary property.”

The Redemptoris Mater Seminary will host its 11th Annual Seminary Christmas Concert at 6 p.m. on Dec. 11 at the seminary courtyard in Yona.