GUAM
The Guam Daily Post
This new school year, the families of Guam’s 4,424 Catholic school students will fork out an extra $12 monthly fee per student to help pay for the debts left behind by a closed college preparatory school and the financial problems caused by another school – but it shouldn’t be that way, said an official with Concerned Catholics of Guam.
Each student will also be assessed a $25 fee for an administrative office for the 14 Catholic schools.
A closed school left behind $2.4 million worth of debts plus payables of about $60,000, and the obligations were assumed by the archdiocese, said David J. Sablan, president of Concerned Catholics. The other school, which fell behind in paying its past-due accounts, owes approximately $180,000, he said.
“The debts should be assumed by the Archdiocese of Agana, which then should find other ways and means” to pay the debts, Sablan said. …
‘Freeloaders’ living at former hotel
To spare Catholic students from the extra cost, the archdiocese can also charge rent to people who live as “freeloaders” in a prime church property – the former oceanview Hotel Accion in Yona, Sablan said.
The former hotel, which the archdiocese is trying to sell, and which was previously valued at around $40 million, houses more than 30 seminarians from all over the world, according to Sablan.
“There are seminarians there from other countries all wanting to be ordained as presbyters for the Neocatechumenal Way,” Sablan said. “Additionally, there are priests staying there who are NCW presbyters, not doing anything for our archdiocese; yet we probably are paying their monthly stipends as required by Church law.”
“And there are people from other countries living there rent-free,” Sablan said. “There is a term we use to define such individuals: freeloaders.”
The Neocatechumenal Way seminary began occupying the former hotel under the leadership of now-suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who is facing child sex-abuse cases before a Vatican tribunal and in the federal court in Guam.
Until that property is sold to cover claims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy, including Apuron, Sablan said charging rent to the occupants of the former hotel should be done instead of making students pay more to attend Catholic schools.
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