By Patrick Downes

Diocesan administrator Father Thomas Gross last week appointed Father Simon Hyo In Choi as the new chaplain for the Korean Catholic Community in Honolulu.

Father Choi, 38, a priest of the Diocese of Daejeon, South Korea, was greeted at the Honolulu International airport, Feb. 16, by members of the Korean Catholic Community and Father Marc Alexander.

Father Alexander is the pastor of St. Pius X Parish in Manoa where the Korean Catholics are headquartered.

Father Choi was ordained on Jan. 24 1995. He was selected for Hawaii through a process set up to by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea in cooperation with the National Korean Pastoral Center in the U.S. to provide priests for Catholic Korean communities in the United States.

According to Father Alexander, Father Choi also served in Florence, Italy, for two years.

Hawaii’s Korean Catholic Community, which Father Alexander said may be the largest in the United States, has been without a permanent priest since December 2003. He said that the community has a congregation of about 400 every Sunday.

For the past several years, the community has also had the highest number of converts annually of any parish in Hawaii. This year it will baptize 21 catechumens at the Easter Vigil.

According the Father Gary Secor, the director of the Office of Clergy, Father Choi’s Hawaii assignment is open ended. His religious service visa is initially for five years.

“This is a very exciting new chapter for the Korean Catholic Community,” said Father Alexander who had been its temporary chaplain for the past year.

“The past year has been a time for evaluation and renewal,” he said of the ethnic community, which he described as “growing and spiritually energetic.”

Father Alexander introduced Father Choi to his new congregation at the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday, Feb. 20, at St. Pius X Church.

The previous full-time chaplain of the Korean Catholic Community was Maryknoll Father John Soltis, an American priest who served as a missionary in Korea for 30 years.