The errors and flagrant liturgical disobediences of the Neocatechumenal Way and even Archbishop Apuron's biases have been known for a long time. And as you know, little was ever done or said about these things. There were quiet complaints and even a short-lived public protest at one point, but for the most part, Catholics on Guam just chose to live and let live.
So what changed? Many people in the NCW just think that out of the blue I and others have decided to suddenly persecute (their word) the Neocatechumenal Way. Well, no, actually, most of us have much better things to do. What changed was the strategy of the leadership of the Neocatechumenal Way, a strategy that was made manifest in the illegal and brutal treatment of Fr. Paul Gofigan by Archbishop Apuron.
For the first time, people could see clearly just how far the foreign leadership of the Neocatechumenal Way had gone and was willing to go to subject our island to the religion of Kiko Arguello. Of course we are not alone. This strategy of persecuting priests who do not turn their parishes over to the Neocatechumenal Way has been observed and reported wherever Kiko has inserted his errors.
The strategy follows a typical Alinsky-ite revolutionary pattern. The Way enters quietly. It puts on the attire of orthodoxy. The "presbyters" appear normal. They enter parishes where there is the least resistance. They go out to breakfast with the ladies after weekday Mass. They learn the local language. It's a process. They understand that. It takes time. They have time. Slowly. Carefully.
Then one community. Then two. People are invited to "come and listen". What could be wrong with that? We want to know more about our faith. Then three. Then, quietly, carefully, reasonably, comes "the new aesthetic", the quiet introduction of Kiko's icons. The people don't know the icons are Kiko's. The vessels change. The people don't know the vessel's are Kiko's. The furniture is rearranged. Statutes are quietly sent away for repair and mysteriously never return.
Soon there are plans for a "building", a "parish center". The people think it's a parish center. They don't know it's a Kiko building, a Neocatechumenary. They don't know that their "presbyter", their "pastor", obeys a different hierarchy, a different magisterium. They don't know that his orders come from Kiko.
They do know something is not right, that something is amiss with those strange sermons. They find it odd that he sometimes fumbles his way through the Mass. But Guam people are accepting and forgiving so the strangeness goes largely un-noted (though not unnoticed). We've learned not to question "father". And the Kiko's count on this.
Actually the process is nothing new. It is similar to how missionaries have been converting pagan peoples and lands since Christ said "go and teach all nations." The difference is Kiko is aiming at places, like Guam, that are already Catholic. Why? Because we are the wrong kind of Catholic. But more importantly, more practically, it's a faster way to power. He doesn't have to start from scratch. There is already a Catholic base. There are already people with money. There are already churches to preach his gospel in. It's a quick way to power and control and he has proven himself a master.
But where he is truly masterful is in his ability to capitalize on the thinly veiled careerism which is rampant in the episcopacy and where there is a long history of jockeying for privilege and position. It is here that Kiko shows himself the ultimate strategist. In the world of episcopal careerism, vocations are the currency. And for a long time, mostly because of the soft life many bishops chose for themselves, there has been a great decline in that currency, causing bishops to grasp at a constant stream of programs and movements in an effort to restore that currency or at least make it look like they are doing something.
This is why Kiko needs seminaries and convents, HIS OWN SEMINARIES AND CONVENTS. Here is where he can convert the children of his numerous communities into the currency he knows the bishops are desperate for. With this currency he can buy bishops and feed them after he has bought them. Never mind the deficient education of this "currency". Never mind that some can't even say Mass - a real one. Kiko covers for those radical and dangerous deficiencies that we are now seeing in that "currency" with the mantra "we don't need good priests, we need holy priests." Ah, who can argue with that?
Well one man, one priest, did. And he was met with a brutality that has shaken this island. WARNING! It has decided to SHAKE BACK!
Go here for Part XI
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