UPDATE: Vatican delegate responds to letters from Guam

By Gaynor Dumat-Ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News
August 5, 2014

http://www.guampdn.com/article/20140805/NEWS01/140805016?odyssey=mod%7Cmostcom

Archbishop Martin Krebs, the pope's New Zealand-based delegate to Guam and other parts of the Pacific, has responded to letters sent by some of Guam's Catholics who are calling for the Vatican to intervene in the local church community's leadership turmoil.

Krebs responded to a letter that church choir member Franklin "Frankie" Gutierrez Jr. wrote. Other parishioners have also received responses from Krebs.

The Aug. 1 letter from Krebs states:

"Dear Franklin,
I have received your important message and have taken due note of it.
I have also noted the copy of your message sent to the Secretariat of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.”

Guam parishioners last week began a letter-writing campaign and sent their letters to Krebs and to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, an office in the Vatican.

The letter-writing campaign was launched at a rally attended by hundreds of Catholics at the steps of the Cathedral-Basilica on Tuesday last week.

Gutierrez wrote to Krebs that the abrupt removal of Monsignor James Benavente from being rector of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica for nearly 20 years, has left him to question Archdiocese of Agana Archbishop Anthony Apuron's leadership.

"I pray our Church stays intact and Monsignor James returns to his rightful place as rector of the Cathedral," Gutierrez wrote.

Gutierrez wrote that he believes the Neocatechumenical Way movement, which the archbishop is affiliated with, has caused division in the local Catholic church.

"I pray our Church stays intact and Monsignor James returns to his rightful place as Rector of the Cathedral. This type of behavior needs to stop and these Neos removed from our Church ... This is something no one should ever have to deal with... rather than look up to our leader -- the archbishop -- I find myself now questioning his leadership and my faith in our Church," Gutierrez wrote.

“I ask for you to try to help us fix/repair these problems and help Monsignor James Benavente. It is obvious that we need an outside source to assist before it's too late and more Catholics lose sight of our Church and their faith,” Gutierrez wrote.

More than a week after the archbishop was stripped of the Cathedral-Basilica's leadership, he was told to move out of the rector's residence at the Cathedral-Basilica.

Benavente and some of his friends and supporters brought his personal belongings -- some in boxes and in luggages – out of the Cathedral-Basilica rector’s residence to a vehicle this morning.

Benavente's personal belongings will go to the St. Anthony/St. Victor Catholic Church in Tamuning. Other boxes are headed for storage.

Benavente has been given the demoted assignment of parochial vicar at St. Anthony parish. Msgr. Benavente thanked people who prayed for him and continue to support him.

He declined to comment on the details on what’s he going to do next.