Marianist Father Kenneth Templin, 67, was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and has three brothers. After being inspired by the Marianists who taught him in high school, Templin joined the order in 1958, becoming a brother a year later. He spent more than a decade as a high school teacher, counselor, and vice principal in Ohio and a year as a province vocation director before entering the Marianist seminary in Toronto in 1974. Father Templin was ordained on May 26, 1979, at his home parish of St. Jerome’s in Cleveland. He then worked in Ohio and Michigan as a high school chaplain and college campus minister until May 2003 when he came to Hawaii. Father Templin is the campus pastoral minister at Chaminade University of Honolulu where he does sacramental ministry, retreats, and pastoral counseling.

1. What is your favorite childhood memory?

I had great Ursuline nuns as teachers and grew up in a wonderful parish. I thought the nuns were excellent teachers and good, healthy disciplinarians. One of the things that I credit them with is that I have a good sense of grammar.

2. What is your favorite Bible passage and why?

John 15:9 “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” To believe in God’s unconditional love for us changes our hearts. To love and to be loved is what the journey is all about.

3. What is your favorite book or author and why?

Henri Nouwen’s “The Life of the Beloved.” It’s a good summary of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Using his language, we are all called, blessed, broken and given. I first read it in 1993 and it was a life-changing book for me.

4. What book are you reading now?

“Jesus Today” by Albert Nolan. It’s a new paradigm for understanding our faith. It’s very much a stretch from a traditional to a new way of understanding Christianity and Jesus.

5. Do you have any hobbies?

Gardening, swimming and reading. I love working in the earth. I have a little garden behind the Marianist Center Community at Chaminade. I try to grow some tomatoes and eggplants and grew some papaya trees my first year, but most of them are gone now. I try to go to the beach as often as possible and on my better days I do some decent swimming. I often go to the beach near the zoo.

6. What or who makes you laugh?

People who share real and funny stories.

7. Where is the one place you have never been but always wanted to visit?

I want to live in a hut over the water in Fiji! There’s just something about nature. There is this feeling of being connected to the water, the air, the earth, which I think is, in a way, very much Hawaiian spirituality. There’s this sense of freedom [in nature] and I think we long for that.

8. What is the biggest challenge facing the Catholic Church today?

Letting go of power and control. Listening to the people in the Church who are concerned and want to collaborate.