GUAM
Pacific News Center
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Guam – Up in the Archdiocese, it’s been several weeks since the controversial firing of Santa Barbara priest Father Paul Gofigan, but it’s unclear what will happen to him or if a resolution, if any, has been reached.
We spoke with the canon lawyer representing Father Paul in his quest to redeem himself from the tarnished reputation he believes was laid upon him by the Archdiocese of Agana.
He was accused of failing to obey Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s directive to dismiss an employee who was a registered sex offender. But Father Gofigan has stated that he had. In an earlier interview with PNC, Father Gofigan said he took the employee off the payroll after he was advised to do so in 2011. The man’s role at the parish became voluntary from that point on, according to Father Gofigan.
And the priest refuses to resign, telling PNC that his rights as a priest were violated when he wasn’t given a chance to defend himself before the Archdiocese made its abrupt decision a month ago.
Father Gofigan has retained a canon lawyer, Father Adolfo Dacanay, a Jesuit Priest who heads the prestigious Ateneo De Manila University’s Theology Department.
Though Father Dacanay declined to comment on the case since it is in litigation, one thing he did make clear—there is no employee-employer relationship between a bishop and a priest.
“The relationship between the bishop and the priest is not an employer-employee relationship, so I would be very careful about describing the relationship between the priest and the bishop as an employee-employer relationship,” Father Dacanay notes.
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