Board: No More Archdiocesan Funds for Seminary

By Neil Pang
Guam Daily Post
October 14, 2016

http://www.postguam.com/news/local/board-no-more-archdiocesan-funds-for-seminary/article_380b8454-9124-11e6-a320-7f36c393f580.html


The board of directors of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, represented by Dr. Ricardo Eusebio, spoke out about perceived biases they said were in a Visitation ad hoc Committee report.

The report was released to the media late last month by Rev. Jeff San Nicolas.

On Sept. 20, San Nicolas, acting in his capacity as delegate to the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Agana, held a press conference and he revealed, among other things, the apparent disconnect in leadership between the archdiocese and the RMS, and released to the media a report that he was expressly told not to release.

“I was also instructed not to release the seminary visitation report,” San Nicolas said in a Sept. 20 press statement. “I will do just that soon after this press briefing.”

Eusebio: 'Fierce bias and prejudice'

Eusebio told media representatives that the report “shows a lack of knowledge on the seminary’s reality but, most of all, fierce bias and prejudice.”

He outlined discrepancies that the board felt were false representations in the report. Eusebio noted the report’s findings that the seminary was too costly an enterprise for the Archdiocese of Agana to maintain.

According to Eusebio, the total amount of money from the archdiocese that actually went to RMS for fiscal year 2016 comprised only about 5 percent of the entire budget. Further, he said that for the past five years, money allotted to RMS through the archdiocese varied between 5 and 8 percent of the annual budgets for those years.

Relying on 'God's providence'

In response to the report, Eusebio announced that RMS would no longer accept support from the archdiocese.

“However, in response to the misleading report which claims an excessive cost of the RMS for the archdiocese, and since the aim of the seminary is to form priests, who may totally rely on the providence of God, the seminary and the institute will be honored from now on, not to receive any support from the archdiocese, and to depend totally on God’s providence,” Eusebio said.