Church reviews Apuron's ban on 'prohibited society'

By Gaynor Dumat-Ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News
June 13, 2016

http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2016/06/13/church-reviews-apurons-ban-prohibited-society/85817256/

Several groups including the Concerned Catholics of Guam, the Laity Forward Movement, and Silent No More, held a protest against Archbishop Anthony Apuron outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral Basilica in Hagatna on June 12. Photo by Frank San Nicolas

Guam’s Catholic church leadership is now reconsidering whether the “Concerned Catholics of Guam” is a prohibited group, as stated earlier this month in a decree by Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

The interim leadership at the Archdiocese of Agana has removed from its website Apuron’s June 5th decree banning the Concerned Catholics of Guam and forbidding island Catholics from associating with the whistleblower group.

That decree has been placed under review, according to a statement released Monday from Father Tadeusz Jan Nowak, who is assisting Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon in the temporary administration of the Archdiocese of Agana, while Apuron is on leave.

Apuron stated his decree would take effect on June 14, but the archdiocesan leadership has placed it under review.

Apuron issued the decree on June 5, the eve of the Vatican’s announcement that Apuron’s administrative authority has been suspended following recent public accusations that he sexually abused young altar boys when he was a parish priest in Agat village.

Nowak released the statement on behalf of the church because Hon isn’t ready to give media interviews just yet, according to the archdiocese.

Apuron had declared the Concerned Catholics of Guam, whose members have been vocal against Apuron’s administration, a “prohibited society,” and told “the faithful in and of this archdiocese, clerical or lay,” to, among other things, avoid association with this organization.

Dave Sablan, vice president of Concerned Catholics, said the organization does not believe Apuron’s decree applies because the group isn’t doing anything contrary to the church’s rules.

And the group wasn’t organized under the authority of the archdiocese, he said.