(posted by Frenchie)
The Guam Daily Post Newspaper today brought forth their concerns regarding the use of the money raised by the Archdiocese, thanks to the sale of some significant properties, pointing out that the victims had not received any money, but that the lawyers had been paid substantial amounts.
For those of us who have been monitoring the Archdiocese bankruptcy proceedings, and kept track of the issues happening at the Chancery, this is not surprising, but for the general public it might be quite upsetting. Why are we not surprised? Because most of the actors at the Chancery are still the same people who worked, aided and abetted the corrupt Apuron administration.
While the disgraced child abuser and corrupt administrator Apuron might be sheltered by his patrons in New Jersey. While the disgraced and defrocked de facto leader of the Chancery for years Adrian Cristobal might continue to be on the run. The people that work with them and for them have remained at the Chancery. One might question why Archbishop Hon chose to do so during his short tenure, and why Archbishop Byrnes has continued to rely on these same people?
It should be noted that the problem at the chore of the challenges facing this Archdiocese can be traced back to these decisions. Basically, both Hon and Byrnes have chosen to use the same people to handle the issues they were responsible for in the first place. Einstein famously declared, that applying the same remedies to the same problems was the definition of insanity. This is exactly where we are.
While last week, we complimented Archbishop Byrnes, to finally if not belatedly show some leadership in regards to the issues of abortion and lack of moral leadership from our political leaders, he was already on a plane, on his way back to Detroit, and not planning to return to Guam until around Thanksgiving. This is leaving us with Fr Richards and Mrs Shimizu in charge (at least on paper), while Mrs Villanueva continues to run rough shot on the parishes' pastors and school principals, and while the Vicar for the Clergy continues to play silly and petty political games.
In the article, that your can read here ,
you can see that Dave Sablan from the CCOG is questioning the wisdom of letting the lawyers, run the clock, rather than trying to really find a solution for the victims. It is an essential and critical topic, which the Archbishop should address himself.
Unfortunately the person leading the negotiations is Fr Ron Richards, who considers (wrongly) that he is a brilliant lawyer. In the meantime, Mrs Villanueva, the CFO makes side deals with some firms, against the court wishes and rules, and keeps bombarding the parishes with Uhkaz of her own.
The big plan apparently is the implementation of Fr Richards, copy and paste scheme called the
Community of Parishes.
What is a Community of Parishes? This is an idea that germinated back in Europe almost two decades ago, and has found favors in the mainland USA, specially in the Archdiocese of Detroit (where Fr Ron took the idea) and the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In Europe, but also in the US many bishops have been faced with a diminution of Church attendance, as well as a lack of priests. At the same time, some smart bishops realized that they were seating on quite a substantial real estate portofolio. The idea was then, to consolidate several parishes together, and close parish buildings first. Then once the parishes were close and reshuffled, the Chanceries would target the endowments that some of these parishes were gifted with. The money was then transferred to the Archdiocese. Detroit and Chicago over the last 15 years have accumulated quite a substantial war chest, thanks to this bait and switch.
This is the main reason the Chancery here, decided to divide the island in several geographic areas, and call them vicariates. This was supposed to be the first step towards imposing the community of parishes. Already some parishes in the south are sharing one priest. The perfect example, being Merizo and Umatac. It would appear that Talafofo, might be included in this scheme, with two priest ending up having to handle 3 parishes. If this experience bears fruit, the model could be reproduced all over the island.
The problem is that the Chancery has not notified the priests, and that the advisory councils to the Bishop, notably the Presbyterial council and the college of Consultors have not met in a very long time.
This begs to ask: where is your vaunted Curia?
Basically the clergy has been sidelined, and their needed advises are totally overlooked and not considered in the least.
On the 16th of this month, Archbishop Byrnes released the Archdiocese financial report, which can be found on the Chancery website in a PDF format, despite the upbeat approach of Byrnes, there are many reasons to be concerned. The fashionable communication pattern of releasing bulletins, instead of truly addressing issues at hand, has permeated from Adelup to Agatna.
It is welcome that the CCOG, gives us a sobering evaluation of these issues. We must assure the parishes and its priests that all their work and effort, will not be hijacked by the same devious characters that worked for Apuron, the lawyers and a few carpet baggers.
In the meantime, while the Archbishop is away once more, we are at the mercy of a career oriented priest, and two female civilians. All of whom have their own agenda, which have nothing to do with the well being of the Archdiocese.
From previous news reports, it appears that attorneys for the victims are working on contingency, i.e. they don't get paid until the deal is done and they get a percentage. This means that all the current legal fees are going to attorneys for the archdiocese. Perhaps JW can look into who these attorneys are and what their fees are. It should be a matter of public record. And then JW may want to post - on a regular basis - the names of the attorneys and a running total of how much they are being paid - not by "the archdiocese" but by the hardworking and long-suffering Catholics of Guam who did the hard work to cleanse their Church and now are being fleeced out of every last penny.
ReplyDeleteWell anon at 8.30, you are absolutely right. We are looking into this issue, and hope to report on it as soon as possible. Thank you for underlining that huge issue.
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