General Decree of the Ordinary

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana
June 05, 2016

http://www.aganaarch.org/

Concerning the Group So-Called “Concerned Catholics of Guam”
For the People in and of the Archdiocese of Agana
In the Territory of Guam

Prot. N. 2016-028

June 5, 2016

WHEREAS The group calling itself Concerned Catholics of Guam, established within the Archdiocese of Agana and purporting to be an association of the faithful therein, has, as an organization conducted itself in the following way:

Setting itself to recruit, by membership or other representation, members of the faithful of this Archdiocese, under the guise of promotion of public worship, Christian virtue, and charitable endeavor without having been erected by competent ecclesiastical authority (c.301 §1);

Assuming the name and usage of the term “Catholic” without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority, as required by law (c. 300);

Actively promoting opposition, both ad hoc and organized, public and private, to legitimate acts of ecclesiastical governance placed by the Ordinary or those acting in his name (c. 1373);

Instigating manifest and public opposition to the Ordinary, with whom they are obliged to preserve communion (c. 209);

Soliciting and disseminating fraudulent or otherwise malicious allegations against the person of the Ordinary (c. 220);

AND WHEREAS Membership, promotion, or direction of such a society is manifestly detrimental to the communion of the faithful in this archdiocese, the good of souls, and to ecclesiastical discipline;

AND WHEREAS The law provides the general principle that membership of such societies is constituted a delict (c. 1374);

AND WHEREAS It is proper to the office of the Ordinary, as the competent ecclesiastical authority, that this above cited canon be applied to such societies within the territory as seems prudent and necessary to the Ordinary, by means of particular law

BE IT THEREFORE KNOWN, EX DECRETUM GENERALIUM, The group calling itself Concerned Catholics of Guam is, hereby, established as a prohibited society under the particular law of this archdiocese.

CONSEQUENTLY All members of the faithful in and of this archdiocese, clerical or lay, are to:

• Avoid association with this organization;
• Refrain from signing, or otherwise promoting, acts or other measures of that organization;
• Renounce membership, or any other position, within that organization;
• Refrain from speaking, publicly or privately, on behalf of that organization.

THIS IS ESTABLISHED AS PARTICULAR LAW IN AND FOR THIS DIOCESE by means of this Decree and shall take effect on midnight on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 (cc. 8, 29).

Such members of the faithful in and of this archdiocese who have heretofore retained membership in this group are paternally and pastorally urged to renounce such membership and avoid the organization, until such time as it be reconciled to competent ecclesiastical authority and this law be repealed.