Row between Bacolod school, diocese escalates

The Queen of Peace Church inside St. John Institute’s in Bacolod City will no longer be a place of worship effective May 31, -Tristan Golez, Contributor

BACOLOD CITY—The St. John’s Institute (SJI) Board of Trustees is not about to let the Diocese of Bacolod declassify its school and chapel.
The SJI, a Chinese school here known as Hua Ming, will appeal the decision of the diocese before the Papal Nuncio, and go all the way up to the Pope if necessary, said their lawyer Jan Saril.
While waiting for a decision, the school will continue to use the Queen of Peace Parish as a place of worship for the students and community to pray the Rosary.
“It will remain open until God’s hands intervene and bring our chapel back to its embrace,” said SJI president Cesar Villanueva.
Last Wednesday, the Diocese of Bacolod announced that the Queen of Peace Parish Church inside the SJI campus will no longer be a place of worship effective May 31 following its dispute with the school’s board of trustees.

READ: Bacolod diocese ‘de-parished’ iconic church over dispute
With the pullout of the diocese from the school, SJI would no longer be considered a Catholic school when classes begin in June.
Bishop Buzon said he would issue a decree that would remove the present status of the Queen of Peace Parish as an oratory because it ceased to be a parish church and shrine as well as a school chapel.
“This means the Blessed Sacraments will be removed from the church and the celebration of masses and sacraments will not be allowed in it at any time,” he said.
Because of the pullout, no priest or religious congregation shall be assigned at SJI , he said.
No masses will be said inside the campus for the duration of an indefinite moratorium subject to the prudent determination of the bishop, Buzon added.
Confirmation and First Communion Masses will be allowed among students upon request but they will be held in a parish church outside of SJI, he said.
The diocese decided to pull out from SJI following the collapse of the negotiations between the diocese and the school’s board of trustees over a disagreement.
The SJI board of trustees want the Queen of Peace Parish Church to be “de-.parished” and reverted back to a chapel to focus on the school.
But the stand was opposed by the bishop because the Queen of Peace Parish can serve both a parish church and a school chapel which it had been doing since the beginning until the last three years.
Bacolod Bishop Patricio Buzon also wanted that the parish and school apostolate be administered not by two different groups of priests but by just one religious congregation.
In a news conference on Thursday, Saril said the actions of Buzon are not just unbecoming of a bishop, they are unbecoming of a Catholic or a Christian because the Queen of Peace church was declared “a religious no man’s land.”
“We are Catholics, we will never abandon our faith,” said the SJI BOT said in a statement read by SJI president Cesar Villanueva.
He said they were surprised by the “underhanded manner” on how the diocese made public their sentiment when the entire Hua Ming community expected a closure to the long drawn-out conflict.
“For the last three years, the school has appealed to this Bishop and his predecessor to revert the Queen of Peace Church from a parish to a chapel, in keeping with the wishes of its founding fathers,” Villanueva said.
He said they had presented alternatives to the Diocese, including reverting the church back into a chapel but continued functioning like a parish.
They also wanted to school to administer the chapel to facilitate the evangelical needs of its students and community during school days and open during weekends for the faithful while allowing the chapel to become a  public oratory that is open to the public.
But the bishop didn’t accept their proposals, he added, and insisted on a parish with full autonomy.
They also suggested to transfer the seat of the parish to the Redemptorist Church as there are no more legal encumbrances to convert that to a parish, Villanueva said.
“This too, was refused by the Diocese, claiming that the parishioners may not be able to identify themselves with a new parish in the Redemptorist Church,” said Villanueva./rga