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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Priest ‘denies’ man last rites, burial
By Jujemay G. Awit
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Even Catholics are not welcome at the Catholic cemetery in Santander, Cebu if they are not members of a selda, a small unit of a basic ecclesiastical community.
Nicolas Bigno, 81, of Cabutongan, Santander was allegedly denied burial at the cemetery by parish priest Jovencio Rabusa because the deceased had stopped being a selda member.
But Rabusa said, “I did not deny the burial but rather asked them to follow procedures.”
Bigno’s daughter, Anita Cadao, brought the matter to Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal through a letter. She wrote that aside from the burial, her father was also denied his last confession and the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.
Sun.Star Cebu was furnished a copy of the letter.
Request
Cadao narrated in her letter that last Sept. 11, her mother Procopia requested Rabusa to visit the bedridden Nicolas for the old man’s confession and anointment.
“They (Nicolas and Procopia) stopped joining the selda because of health problems, but Fr. Rabusa refused to consider such reason and rather insisted that they join the selda before he can give in to my mother’s request,” read Cadao’s letter.
In a phone interview, Rabusa explained that he only asked them to seek clearance from selda heads.
“This has been our rule, that anybody who seeks burial at the cemetery will have to get clearance from selda heads, in respect to the group and to the procedure which has been followed by previous parish priests,” he said.
Rabusa waited for the clearance of the Bigno family, but they did not return. Selda heads also told him the family didn’t approach them.
Nicolas died on Sept. 12. Two days later, Cadao went to Rabusa’s office to ask him to say mass for her father. Fr. Rabusa’s secretary turned down the request.
“We asked his secretary that we be allowed to see and talk to Fr. Rabusa, but she said he did not want to talk to us and that his decision not to hold mass for our father was final,” Cadao wrote.
Rabusa denied he was in his office then.
The family turned to priests from neighboring towns of Oslob and Samboan and the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral for the mass for their father. But the priests first needed a permit from Fr. Rabusa. No one heeded the family’s request for mass.
Protocol
Rabusa denied calling other priests to ask them to refuse the family’s request, as implied by Cadao’s letter. He said it was a matter of protocol for other priests not to meddle in an internal parish issue.
Nicolas was finally buried at the Santander Public Cemetery on Sept. 21. Cadao said members of other families were also refused burial at the Catholic cemetery.
Santander Mayor Wilson Wenceslao is planning to put up a P4-million public cemetery so that his constituents don’t have to go to nearby towns to bury their dead.
The Catholic cemetery doesn’t accommodate burials of non-Catholics, Catholics with live-in partners or those married in civil rites.
Cardinal Vidal earlier said he will look into Cadao’s complaint.
“I will certainly look into that... If that is an admissible action, and whether there was a kind of policy among themselves,” he said.
Rabusa confirmed that Vidal already called him up for a meeting. Rabusa said he is open to any investigation regarding his actions.
(November 8, 2005 issue)
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