OUR VIEW: Byrnes' actions with seminary provide clarity

Pacific Daily News
November 20, 2016

http://www.guampdn.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/11/20/our-view-byrnes-actions-seminary-provide-clarity/94160282/

Archbishop Michael Byrnes

Last week, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes signed back the title of the Yona seminary to the Archdiocese of Agana.

We support this move. After years of division and pain in the church on Guam, this decision provides clarity for the church community and the opportunity to move forward and heal.

In 2002, the archdiocese used a $1.9 million loan to purchase the former 100-room Accion Hotel in Yona. The Carmelite nuns donated $2 million to pay off the loan, giving the archdiocese full title to the property, the building and its contents.

The seminary was “specifically designed to form presbyters for the ‘New Evangelization’ as understood by the Neocatechumenal Way,” according to a report issued in September by the archdiocese.

“As a result the seminarians’ formation does not prioritize the importance of parish ministry, parish management and the general familiarity of the seminarians with parish life,” the report stated.

In 2011, seminary representatives asked the archdiocese finance council to transfer the title of the property to the seminary itself. After the finance council denied the request, Archbishop Anthony Apuron signed a deed restriction allowing the property to be held by the seminary indefinitely.

Then Apuron fired the finance council.

“The clandestine nature of how the deed restriction was filed has driven the belief among the faithful that the ‘absolute conveyance’ of the property was intentional,” the archdiocese report stated.

According to the nun who arranged the financial donation, Mother Superior Dawn Marie, Apuron then asked the nuns to lie about the intended use of the property.

The church is a central part of our community, and the division and conflict we have experienced over the last few years is unsettling.

Regardless of faith, no clandestine business will benefit the community. Thank you, Archbishop Byrnes, for setting this right.