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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Wednesday, January 25, 2017
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BACOLOD City – “We want our chapel back,” the stakeholders of the St. John Institute (SJI) told a news conference yesterday.
They were referring to the Queen of Peace Church, popularly known as the Hua Ming Church.
The SJI alumni and Board of Trustees (BOT) have asked the Diocese of Bacolod to revert it to a chapel from a parish.
That was what one of the school’s founders, the late Monsignor John Su, wanted, they stressed.
Documents will prove that the SJI was the rightful owner of the church, said Karen Lo-Tsai, president of the SJI Alumni Association.
BOT president Cesar Villanueva said the reversion, “supported by the SJI community, is in keeping with the wishes of the late Su … to bring the church back to the school to serve as foundation of the students’ growth in the Catholic faith.”
According to the BOT, Su sought the reversion believing that “parochial activities” have “hampered” the administration of the SJI.
The Queen of Peace Church was situated within the SJI campus.
Oddette Ong-Gomez, also an alumna and president of the SJI parents’ council, said they wanted to honor and respect the “dying wish” of Su, most of them having been brought up in a “very Chinese way.”
The BOT brought up the matter to Bishop Patricio Buzon in a meeting after he assumed the top diocese position last year, said another alumnus, Atty. Jan Anthony Saril.
“During the meeting, the bishop intimated that this conflict is not as complicated as it seems,” said Saril. “He (Buzon) even said he could resolve the problem in a month’s time.”
Just this Jan. 7, Buzon again met with the trustees and told them he can give them an answer in March, or in two months.
But the BOT was surprised when Father Julius Haban, in a homily during a 10 a.m. mass on Jan. 22, read a Jan. 12 letter the Parish Council sent to Buzon, thanking the bishop for assuring that the Queen of Peace Church will remain a parish.
“What authority does Father Julius Haban have to make such an announcement during a homily on such a very sensitive issue,” the BOT wrote Buzon on Jan. 23.
In the letter, signed by Villanueva and BOT chairman Benjamin Lopue, the trustees asked Buzon to “decide on the merits of the SJI’s request,” or else “the rift would continue to widen between the school, the parish and the diocese.”/PN
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