Hon Calls on Seminary to Return Property

Guam Daily Post
August 18, 2016

http://www.postguam.com/news/local/hon-calls-on-seminary-to-return-property/article_f99ca9bc-6510-11e6-bea7-17ca70950174.html

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Agana, yesterday issued an announcement to “the faithful of the archdiocese and local media” in which he called on the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona, “to spontaneously and effectively renounce, without any litigation” the use of “in perpetuity” of the seminary property which it obtained from the Archdiocese of Agana.

The seminary is affiliated with the Neocatechumenal Way and its ownership has been a point of contention between Archbishop Anthony Apuron and Catholic lay activists who have contended that Apuron gave the multi-million dollar Yona property away.

"The 'property' was no doubt acquired by the Archdiocese, and yet its use has been conceded in perpetuity to (the seminary) and (Blessed Diego Theological Institute)," Hon wrote. "Such act of concession was not done in a usual way by an internal Ecclesiastical agreement, but by the Declaration of Deed Restriction filed in the local Government of Guam in November 2011. Such a deed has been a source of grave dispute and division in our Church."

'Rescind and annul'

Hon said the Holy See, more than a year ago, requested that Apuron “rescind and annul” the deed restriction. "Clearly, this instruction has not been carried out accordingly," Hon wrote.

Hon wrote that he and the archdiocese's presbyteral council last week had met with members of the church who made "an extensive presentation ... illustrate with documentation how the Deed Restriction was done without due process in conformity with the Church law and praxis and how the text of the Deed Restriction created great ambiguities."

He affirmed the intention "of the current archdiocesan administration to hold firmly that the title of the 'property' and the legal right over it should uniquely belong to the Archdiocese of Agana and to rescind and annul the above-mentioned Deed Restriction."

On June 6, Pope Francis removed Apuron from his pastoral duties pending investigation of sexual abuse allegations against Apuron. At that time, Hon was named apostolic administrator and arrived in Guam shortly after. Since mid-May, four individuals have accused Apuron of molesting altar boys when he was a parish priest at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Agat in the 1970s.