Ever thought of helping a priest?

It had to have been near the turn of the century, when I saw then-Archbishop Anthony Apuron in his full bishop vestments walking around the Micronesia Mall with an entourage and I thought, ‘Well, that’s a bit much.’

Many in my generation remember Mr. Apuron’s penchant for the finer things in life. And as we were being taught in our youth about Christ’s life and the church’s mission, we never got a good answer to our question, ‘Why does the archbishop drive a Lexus?’

It was a richer Archdiocese of Agana in those days. Back when the Umatuna Si Yu’us was a printed Sunday newsletter, the archdiocese would print how much was collected at the previous Sunday’s Mass collections for each parish. Agana always collected the most. It wasn’t uncommon to read that parishioners there had donated five to even six figures in a given week.

All that has changed. Fewer people go to Mass. Collections are a shadow of what they used to be. And the archdiocese is only now able to begin its financial recovery from a lengthy and painful bankruptcy. This entire financial predicament arguably can be traced to Mr. Apuron, who ironically lived a lavish lifestyle.

The new archbishop – Ryan Jimenez – cannot stay in the official archbishop’s residence. It no longer belongs to the archdiocese, a sacrifice the church had to make in its drawn-out attempt to salvage what it could from the grip of its liabilities to the men and women the archdiocese hurt over the decades.

Archbishop Jimenez, like many of his brother priests in Guam, is not from here and does not have family with whom he can stay. So, according to a Kandit source, the archdiocese is renting him a modest one-bedroom apartment until the chancery and the Archdiocesan Finance Council can figure things out.

When he arrived, he said, former apostolic administrator Father Romeo Convocar apologized to his new boss that the archdiocese could only afford to provide the archbishop with a used car.

“Father Romy told me, ‘We have a car for you, but you’re the third owner,'” he said, dismissing any pretension, and quipping “It’s no problem for me.”

“It’s never been a concern to me what would be given to me,” he said. “Because we sign up for this. We cannot be a prima donna and say ‘I’m the Archbishop of Agana and I need to have a brand new [car]'” the archbishop said, explaining that he is making do with the resources at hand.

 

‘We take care of our priests’ in the CNMI, senator says

The day of his installation Mass, my friend from Saipan, Celina Roberto Babauta, asked me if we take care of our priests here in Guam. I asked her what she meant, and she told me that in the CNMI, parishioners “take care of our priests.”

“It’s our custom,” the senator said, referring to countless families who provide priests in the CNMI with housing, cars, food, even monthly allowances. I told her that most if not all Catholic parishes house the priests in structures connected to or near the church.

“Our priests are in the community,” she said of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota’s priests. “We,” she said, referring to volunteers in the CNMI, “make sure they have what they need.”

She gave the example of families who have homes that are vacant. “That’s where the priest will stay,” she said. During the late Bishop Tomas Camacho’s tenure, Ms. Babauta’s mother and family paid for the diocese’s trash service.

And a common practice in the CNMI is for people to give priests a monthly allowance they can count on as long as the donor is alive.

 

The meager pay priests get

In Guam, according to priests I have spoken to, a portion of the money collected by each parish pays for the expenses of the church, which would include the utilities and other basic necessities of the place where the priests live. While the priests are not going hungry, basic nutrition is increasingly unaffordable. Thankfully, and joyfully I’ve seen this many times, parishioners would donate money or food or other items, or take priests to eat at restaurants.

Priests reportedly are paid a stipend for each Mass he celebrates. The stipend is closer to an Andrew Jackson than a Ulysses Grant. Priests with further responsibility are paid for those additional duties. For example, if a priest also is a Catholic school teacher, he may receive additional pay.

But, to be sure, the pay priests in Guam receive is closer to what a McDonald’s or maintenance worker earns. And many of them end up giving away significant portions of that meager paycheck in order to provide for the poor and homeless in their parish, or wherever they encounter them.

 

Consider helping

“I should be satisfied and content with what we have,” Archbishop Jimenez said. This statement, made only hours after taking office, reminded me of Christ’s instruction to the disciples, when He told them to go out to spread the Good News, and to bring nothing with them. Everything they would need, the Father would provide.

And while the Catholic faithful has been as generous as they judged for the weekly collection, and some quietly provide for needs throughout the parishes, the archdiocese and its priests are obviously poorer than the archdiocese and priests of yesteryear.

Consider the large number of priests who are not from Guam and have no family here. The only support system they can have is the one you and I can be part of.

“The priests are living below poverty line, and that’s not right,” the archbishop said.

 

If you are interested in “adopting” a priest as is the custom in the CNMI, and providing that priest an allowance; or

If you want to make donations to the priests of the archdiocese, the archbishop, or the chancery; or

If you want to help your parish to pay the power and water bills; or

If you want to take your priest to lunch once a week, or donate groceries; or

If you want to give any of your money, belongings, talent, and time to the church…

Call the chancery at (671) 472-6116.

 

[The archdiocese did not ask me to write this story.]