Scandal, the Way, prejudice, propaganda, meekness, and humility

The song gets me every time. Not the one you hear in the video I attached to this story. It was Saints of God. At most funeral Masses a choir will sing it at the end of the in-Church celebration. I didn’t think to record it while it was playing at the funeral of Lourdes Santos Pangelinan – Peter Santos’ mother – at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Agat. Well, because every time that song plays, I’m too busy fighting back tears. I digress.

In the video is Father Harold Colorado Prieto, native of Colombia but incardinated in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Agana. He was the pastor of San Dimas and San Dionicio parishes, and now is parochial administrator of Mount Carmel. Before that, he served at St. Anthony Church in Tamuning. That’s where I first came to know him.

It was before the pandemic, and some time fresh from my journey into sobriety. There is an ironic twist to this story.

I’ve told my account before of how I ventured back into my Catholic roots at the middle age of 39 (I’m 44 now). In summary: A note from JungleWatch’s Tim Rohr to me about not letting Judas come between Jesus and me opened my mind to the idea that I could be more than just a cafeteria Catholic. Within days of that realization, my friend Vanessa Navarro asked me to go to Holy Mass with her at Santa Teresita in Mangilao. After that Sunday I decided to go again, this time in Tamuning; and I ended up going every Sunday after that.

At that first Holy Mass in Tamuning for me (after years of not attending), the first thing I noticed was how cute the priest was. (Don’t lie.  You think Father Harold is cute, too). I’m not saying my faith is fully formed now, but back then I really had no idea what was going on in the Mass. I thought it was all a jumble of ceremony and custom practices. For someone like me at the time, what seemed to make or break my decision to attend Mass the following Sunday was what the priest said in his homily (the speech the priest makes after the Gospel reading).

I will never forget the first time I heard a Father Harold homily. His language was direct and colorful at the same time. He had my full and undivided attention when he started to talk about himself as a sinner and as someone with a past as a gang banger amid the drug cartels in Colombia years ago. I had never before him heard a priest talk so openly and vividly about his own faults. In an instant, he made me – a shameful sinner – feel welcome in that church. I know now that we’re not supposed to base our decision to go to Holy Mass on the priest or otherwise anything else but our love of God, but back then, I kept going back every Sunday to hear what Father Harold had to say next about the Gospel. I’m convinced the Holy Spirit had been working through him to get to me. And so long as I kept going back, I was certain that my faith would grow.

Here’s the ironic twist. As a returning newcomer to my Catholic faith, I wasn’t much informed of the politics surrounding the archdiocese and I had no idea Father Harold was among the priests often targeted by JungleWatch due to his association with the Neocatechumenal Way. I remember finding that out a few weeks into my journey back into Christianity and thinking, ‘Gosh, I have no idea what’s so wrong with Father Harold, and now I wonder about all this other stuff being said against the Way.’

There is a mountain of evidence of the sins of the archdiocese over the past several decades. From the coverup of clergy sex abuse to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary scandal to funny business related to the church at the Guam Department of Land Management. For years these scandals were tied to the Way. It was an easy connection because the scandalous former archbishop, Anthony Apuron, was a member of the sect and allowed the group to grow in number and powers during his administration. But if we’re being honest, it wasn’t just the Way.

The clergy sex abuse was happening before the Way was even conceived. Decades before the Way found its way to our shores, parishioners and ordinaries were looking the other way when priests and Catholic school teachers were molesting and raping children.

The scapegoating of the Way reminds me a bit of Guamanians who blame crime on Chuukese people, forgetting that Chamorros commit more violent crime than our Micronesian brothers and sisters do.

Recently, the archdiocese has had to deal with a couple of remnants from the clergy sex scandal. The first was an investigative report in The New York Times that alleged at least one current itinerant priest in Guam was part of a group of accused and convicted priests from the west systematically moved into the remote dioceses of the Pacific. According to the archdiocese, The Times reporter asked about four priests: John Wadeson, James Grear, and the late priests Louis Brouillard and Randy Nowak. Despite suspicions made out loud by detractors of the Way, only one of these four was a member of that group.

On Friday the archdiocese was supposed to append to its website the names of two priests in Guam who have been credibly accused or convicted of sexual misconduct. This naming of the priests onto its website reportedly is by order of the federal court. For whatever reason, the archbishop’s assistant emailed all the priests of the archdiocese Thursday night to inform them that the archdiocese would not be complying by Friday, and needed some time with disclaimer language.

Kandit sources tell us the archdiocese fears a lawsuit from one of the priests, or from the order that priest is from. Our sources also gave us the two names, and only one of them is associated with the Way.

I’m no expert in church law, and I’m the furthest thing from a holy man. But as I venture up this path of Christianity, what I can say is that the joy and peace I sense from my fellow Catholics – Way and traditional – while in Mass diverges from the contempt and division that appears outside of the celebration. My dad was part of the Way, and I never knew him to be a happier person prior to his membership in the community where he belonged. In fact, every person I know and I have met who has been in the Way is a joyful, excited Catholic.

I don’t really know the leaders of the Way in Guam. Perhaps what their detractors say about them is true. There very well could be some less-than-holy conspiracy involving money and power. After all, those conspiracies abound in every corner of this island. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that such misconduct lurks within the archdiocese. But goodness overflows everywhere, within the Way, among the traditional Catholic laity and ordinaries, within the communities of our Protestant brothers and sisters, among agnostics and non-believers. We are all on different parts of a journey, each of us in need of encouragement and at times correction without prideful and wicked admonishment and abandonment.

During Father Harold’s funeral Mass homily for Lourdes Pangelinan, he emphasized how her journey was over, but that for the rest of us, God has gifted us time and free will to make things right on the journey we continue to be on. I’ve learned so much from this priest. I’m glad I didn’t write him off based on what others had said or written about him. In many ways, I’m glad you all have not written me off for the things others have said or written about me.

This connection (for lack of a better term) I have with Father Harold is a reminder to me that in the midst of polarizing arguments – even in the church – there is a kinder, gentler way. Christ asked us to be meek and humble like Him. In every convoluted contention we suffer, transforming ourselves from our pride and vanity into Christian vessels of meekness and humility is probably the best place where we can start to find solutions and communion.