Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Masses ok, but priest ‘can’t hear confessions’
A CEBU church official admitted he did not know that Fr. Benedicto Ejares celebrated a mass at the Palace of Justice last Thursday, but added that this was permissible.
“Yes, this is okay because he is presently not suspended by the church. But he must not conduct confessions,” Cebu Archdiocese media liaison officer Msgr. Achilles Dakay said in a phone interview.
Fr. Ejares stands accused of acts of lasciviousness, child abuse and sexual harassment, after seven high school students of the Abellana National School complained that he touched them inappropriately during their confessions in a Life in the Spirit seminar in school on Nov. 14, 2006.
This prompted Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal to disallow Ejares from officiating mass and confessions in public. Still, the prelate said Ejares remains a priest, although he does not have an assignment yet.
In last Thursday’s case, Ejares was reportedly invited by the Parole and Probation Administration.
“We knew about the case against him but, considering that we are working with convicted prisoners, we decided not to be judgmental,” said the agency’s regional director, Ofelia Quijano.
The motion for reconsideration on the criminal complaint against the priest remains pending at the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor.
The prosecutor’s office has received the copies of the psychological report prepared by Dr. Frederick Boholst, who found that the five remaining complainants suffered from “considerable psychological distress.”
One of the girls was diagnosed to have post-traumatic stress disorder and counseling was “highly recommended.”
Last Oct. 3, the prosecutor’s office dismissed all seven counts of acts of lasciviousness, child abuse, and sexual harassment against Ejares for “lack of probable cause.”
The students, assisted by lawyers and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, filed a motion for reconsideration. However, only five signed the affidavit of verification that their lawyers submitted to the prosecutor’s office last Oct. 31.
In the mass last week, Quijano said they wanted to offer prayers for Rogelio Atillo, 58, an administrative assistant of the Parole and Probation Board who died inside their office after suffering from a heart attack.
Lawyer Gregorio Bacolod, their former administrator, offered to contact a priest.
Fr. Ejares was assigned in Asturias, Cebu at the Sta. Lucia parish from 1998 to 2002.
In an interview last April, Cardinal Vidal told Sun.Star Cebu that from the beginning of the case, he had advised Ejares not to show himself in public yet.
Ejares’ suspension by the church will depend on many factors, which Cardinal Vidal did not enumerate. But in order to distinguish between lasciviousness and inappropriateness, he said they will make use of a certain church protocol. (NRC)
