January

• The sixth permanent deacon class of the Diocese of Honolulu, composed of 17 men, is ordained by Bishop Larry Silva between Jan. 13 and Feb. 10 in six ceremonies on five islands.
• The sale of Hawaii’s two Catholic hospitals, St. Francis Medical Centers East and West, to Hawaii Medical Center closes on Jan. 14.
• On Jan. 17, a lawsuit between the Diocese of Honolulu and Elton Killion is settled out of court for $375,000 without an admission of liability on the diocese part. Killion had claimed he was sexually abused by Capuchin Franciscan Father Andrew Mannetta while the priest worked in Hawaii.
• Bishop Silva is the featured speaker at the annual Red Mass on Jan. 18 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. He preached on the topic of “legal and bloodless violence,” abuse perpetuated by the misuse of media, law and economic policies.
• Bishop Silva speaks at the 34th annual March for Life at the state capitol on Jan. 22.
• Three priests with Hawaii ties, Fathers Adrian Gervacio, Thomas Purayidathil and Jason Souza, receive assignments at island parishes.

February

• Hundreds of Hawaii Catholic school administrators, teachers and staff gather in the Neal Blaisdell Arena Feb. 2 for Oahu’s Annual Conference of Catholic Educators. Catholic school educators celebrating 20, 30, and 50 years of service are recognized.
• At its annual meeting on Feb. 9, Catholic Charities Hawaii marks the 60th anniversary of the arrival from New York in 1947 of three Maryknoll Sisters to establish the agency at the request of the bishop of Honolulu. Governor Linda Lingle declares that day Catholic Charities Hawaii Day.
• Rwandan genocide survivor and author of “Left to Tell” Immaculée Ilibagiza speaks before nearly 1,000 people at St. Ann Church in Kaneohe on Feb. 16. She also talks with several other school and church groups while in Hawaii.

March

• An electrical fire damages part of the original 73-year-old church building at St. Anthony Parish in Kailua on March 1.
• Prominent anti-death penalty activist Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking,” speaks at Chaminade University of Honolulu on March 11. The next day she spoke to a group of prison ministry volunteers.
• Benedictine Sister Celeste Cabral makes her final religious vows at the Benedictine Monastery in Waialua on March 25 in front of more than 250 people.
• Bishop Silva blesses the holy oils for use in Oahu parishes for the upcoming year at the annual Chrism Mass on March 29 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa. He also celebrates Chrism Masses on Kauai, Maui and the Big Island in March.
• Tribunal judge and diocesan chancellor John Ringrose retires on March 30. Deacon Walter Yoshimitsu replaces him as chancellor.

April

• The Catholic Church in Hawaii receives 157 new members into the church when they are baptized at the Easter Vigil, April 7, in parishes throughout the diocese. Around 125 adults and children also receive Confirmation and Holy Eucharist bringing them into full communion in the church.
• Twenty Hawaii sisters, brothers and priests celebrate their 25th, 50th, 60th and 70th anniversaries of vows and ordinations at an annual liturgy celebrating the religious jubilarians at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa on April 13.
• Mary Jane Home founder and pro-life champion Robert Pearson shares his experiences counseling pregnant women with 50 people at a Respect Life Evening on April 25 at St. Anthony Parish in Kailua.
• The diocese closes its purchase on April 26 of a 23-acre plot in the Ewa district of Oahu as the future site of a new church and island-wide gathering place.
• The Island Treasures celebration, hosted by Catholic Charities Hawaii, honors 91 outstanding parish volunteers at a banquet April 27 at the Sheraton Waikiki.
• About 300 people attended a candlelight vigil at the state capitol on April 29 to listen, reflect and pray for the victims of genocide in Darfur in Western Sudan.

May

• Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary representatives join Catholic schools students at the Blessed Damien statue at the state capitol on May 10 to celebrate Damien’s feast day. A musical Mass in Damien’s honor is also performed at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
• The diocese’s Tribunal and Canonical Affairs office moves from the downtown Honolulu chancery building to St. Stephen Diocesan Center on May 15.
• Sacred Hearts Academy breaks ground May 17 on its Kaimuki campus for a $10 million performing arts building.
• Bishop Silva, in a May 22 letter to Father Joseph Diaz, parish administrator of Our Lady of Honokaa and its St. Joseph Mission in Paauilo, approves of the demolition of St. Joseph, which was the church hardest hit by the Oct. 15, 2006, Big Island earthquake.
• Thirty years after she fled communist Vietnam with her family, Daughter of St. Paul Sister Gioan Linh Nguyen returns to Vietnam for a 16-day trip.

June

• Bishop Silva ordains Dong Min Paul Li, Peter Miti and Cletus Mooya as priests on June 8 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa. This is the first triple ordination of diocesan priests in 15 years.
• The Office for Social Ministry’s Hawaii Island Food Bank unveils its new name, The Food Basket, Inc., and logo on June 9.
• Bishop Larry Silva leads a eucharistic procession of 230 faithful from the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Kalihi-Palama to the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on June 10 to celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.
• After 80 years, the Society of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers closes the doors of the Center House on Dole Street in Honolulu.

July

• Due to population growth in the Leeward area, the Diocese of Honolulu forms a new vicariate on July 1, when the Leeward Oahu Vicariate is split in two into the Leeward Oahu and Central Oahu vicariates.
• As part of its strategic planning process, the diocese holds a focus group meeting for homosexual Catholics, family and friends on July 25 at St. Augustine parish hall in Waikiki.
• Judicial vicar Father Joseph Grimaldi accepts an assignment as a California hospital chaplain on July 30, “on loan” from the Diocese of Honolulu.
• A quarter of Hawaii’s parishes receive new administrators or pastors in July and August clergy reassignments. Three parishes also receive new associate pastors, or parochial vicars. Of note, former vicar for clergy and director of vocations Father Gary Secor becomes the pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Kuliouou, Father Peter Dumag becomes vocations director, and Father Khanh Hoang becomes vicar for clergy.
• The Office of Social Ministry closes its Maui office and its Maui director, Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Roselani Enomoto relocates to Oahu to work at St. Stephen Diocesan Center.
• In July, several members of Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa do research in the Hawaii State Archives into the names of the more than 8,000 Hansen’s disease patients who were quarantined on Molokai’s Kalaupapa peninsula from 1866 to 1969 as part of the group’s Kalaupapa Names Project, which seeks to erect a monument in Kalaupapa.

August

• Father Peter Coughlin is the keynote speaker at the Hawaii Catholic Charismatic Conference at St. Philomena Church in Salt Lake, Aug. 3-5.
• Community members at the Benedictine Monastery in Waialua have to evacuate the monastery for a short time when the Aug. 12-21 north shore brushfires comes within a half mile of its buildings.
• Oahu Catholic educators gather at St. Ann Church in Kaneohe on Aug. 20 for the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit that begins each Catholic school year. Kauai, Maui and Big Island Catholic school educators also hold Masses of the Holy Spirit.
• On Aug. 21 and 22 the Office for Social Ministry’s Care-A-Van Homeless Programs blesses five new Big Island homeless outreach facilities.

September

• Father Mark Gantley, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., takes over as the Diocese of Honolulu’s judicial vicar on Sept. 1.
• Bishop Silva grants the request on Sept. 11 of the Newman Center/Holy Spirit Parish at the University of Hawaii-Manoa to change its name to the University Catholic Center/Holy Spirit Parish.
• Almost a year after West Hawaii off-shore earthquakes revealed extensive deterioration of the mortar holding together St. Michael Church in Kailua-Kona, the building is labeled a “dangerous structure” and closes on Sept. 24.

October

• Hawaii artist Peggy Chun launches her new book “The Watercolor Cat,” about her life and battle with ALS, on Oct. 8. The book is co-written with Shelly Mecum, a teacher at Holy Trinity School in Kuliouou, where students have been painting a watercolor mosaic of Blessed Damien de Veuster under Chun’s direction.
• A hundred or so men and boys, including Bishop Silva, and a handful of women march through Honolulu on Oct. 11 as part of the 13th Annual Men’s March Against Violence.
• For the first time in recent memory, Bishop Silva leads a public recitation of the rosary on Oct. 12 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in honor of the 90th anniversary on Oct. 13 of the last appearance of Our Lady of Fatima. Several other groups held public rosary events on Oct. 13.
• The medical commission of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints unanimously rules on Oct. 18 that the medical healing of a Hawaii woman from cancer attributed to Blessed Damien de Veuster is a miracle. The ruling is a significant step toward the canonization of Damien.

November

• Fifteen hundred youth gather at Leeward Community College for the State Youth Rally on Nov. 3, with special guest presenters comedian and evangelist Jesse Manibusan and Archdiocese of New Orleans priest Father Tony Ricard.
• The Sisters of St. Francis have an opening liturgy on Nov. 8 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace to start a year of celebrating the 125th anniversary of the arrival of Blessed Marianne Cope and the first Franciscan Sisters in Hawaii.
• Maryknoll School holds a blessing and groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 13 at the site of its future $12 million Maryknoll School Community Center, which will be the first gym and large indoor gathering space the school has ever had when it is completed in 2009.
• The 80th anniversary of the arrival of the Maryknoll Fathers and Sisters in Hawaii is celebrated with a Mass and reception at Sacred Heart Church in Honolulu on the evening of Nov. 30.

December

• Father Thomas Killackey, Hawaii’s last Maryknoll veteran pastor, leaves the islands on Dec. 5 for the Maryknoll retirement residence in New York. Father Killackey had served in the islands almost continuously since 1956. Only one Maryknoll priest, Father John Soltis, who came here in 2001 and is in residence at St. Philomena Church in Salt Lake, remains in Hawaii.
• The “Star Light, Star Bright!” Christmas party sponsored by the diocese for children of women prisoners is held Dec. 15 at St. Stephen Diocesan Center for the sixth year.
• The diocese closes the purchase of 1150 Fort Street Mall next to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on Dec. 18, on behalf of the cathedral parish, which will use the building as a gathering place. The building used to be part of the Sacred Hearts Sisters’ convent school in the early 1900s.