Who owns the lands where Catholic churches are built?

Sen. Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) underscored the need for the CNMI government to work perhaps with the Office of the Attorney General to go back in time and see whether the government still has rights to the lands where Catholic churches in the CNMI are erected.

At the Senate session last week, DeLeon Guerrero said lawmakers should be concerned because if these public lands are being held as liens to settle a huge case right now against the Catholic Church in Guam, it will affect the people of the CNMI.

The senator said she is sure a lot of the senators and even the community are aware that there is a set of documentations that are going around with respect to public land ownership that may take the CNMI way back in time to the Trust Territory days, or before the islands had a relationship with the U.S. government under the Covenant.

“And the reason why I raised this issue is because it brings me to the question of how much of our land valuation with respect to public lands do we own,” she said.

DeLeon Guerrero said some senators perhaps have a copy of those particular land documentations with respect to the churches of the Commonwealth.

“And these are premium properties,” she pointed out.

The senator said she is especially concerned because the CNMI Constitution talks about land valuation and the Commonwealth government could go out in the open market and seek funding from sources of investments, for example, floating a bond.

DeLeon Guerrero underscored the need to address this issue once and for all and encouraged the Department of Public Lands to look into the matter.

She said DPL should have an open conversation with the Senate so that they can know for sure whether the CNMI owns those public lands. She said this issue is already being circulated on social media and being discussed publicly in the open with respect to the ownership of the churches.

“We have to remind ourselves that this is not about religion. This talks about the separation of church and state,” the senator said.

DeLeon Guerrero said they look at this matter also in the perspective of the CNMI Constitution of how much truly do the CNMI own with respect to public lands.

She said a lot of these properties are on Saipan and that collectively, as a CNMI state, they need to know.

“We talk about financial issues. We, for a fact, as a government, we have outstanding bonds out there that we are still paying for,” the senator said. “And if we are operating on a land valuation, we don’t even know if these properties are included in those land valuation calculations. We may perhaps be in violation of our very own constitution,” she added.

A separate email sent to Saipan Tribune also raised this issue, where it was pointed out that some of these properties are in the name of the Guam church and that there is talk of the Guam Catholic Church possibly seeking to declare bankruptcy to settle a sexual abuse case and so will have an impact on CNMI landownership.