HCH photo by Anna Weaver

With St. Damien de Veuster’s banner above him, Pope Benedict XVI blesses the thousands in St. Peter’s Square during the Angelus prayer that followed the Oct. 11 canonization Mass of Damien and four others.

The church in the islands in 2009

A review of the important stories of the past year for the Catholic Church in Hawaii

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

January

• The last Maryknoll priest assigned to Hawaii, Father John Soltis, left the islands on Jan. 6, closing out 82 years of the missionary society’s service to Hawaii.
• Rwandan genocide survivor and speaker Immaculee Ilibagiza makes her third visit to Hawaii from Dec. 27 to Jan. 7.
• At the annual Red Mass on Jan. 22, homilist Sacred Hearts Father Herman Gomes speaks about Father Damien as a model of public service.

February

• Catholic Charities Hawaii breaks ground for the renovation of its new central offices, the Clarence T.C. Ching Campus in Makiki on Feb. 12.
• Diocesan vocations director Father Peter Dumag launches the “AKUA Walk/Run for Vocations” campaign to promote vocations with about 80 others at the Great Aloha Run on Feb. 16.
• On Feb. 21 Pope Benedict XVI announces that Father Damien will be canonized on Oct. 11 with four others. Bishop Silva is present in Rome for the announcement. In Hawaii, Masses on Oahu on Feb. 21 and in Kalaupapa on Feb. 22 celebrate the news.

March

• The Diocese of Honolulu hires a new finance officer, Lisa Sakamoto, who starts on March 2.
• Bishop Silva consecrates Noemi Angeles as a Consecrated Virgin Living in the World on March 8 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. She is one of two known consecrated virgins for the Diocese of Honolulu.
• The diocese’s first full-time human resources director, Dara Perreira, starts her job on March 9.
• The Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii celebrates 25 years in Hawaii on March 21.
• Oahu youth and young adults carry a large cross around the island March 23-28 in a project called “Cross Walk” to call attention to social justice issues.
• The diocese hires Marlene De Costa as its director of real estate on March 23.

April

• Thirty-two Hawaii religious and priests celebrate 70, 60, 50 and 25 years of profession and ordination at the annual diocesan jubilee celebration on April 24.
• Four members of the Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii fly to Rome for the April 26 canonization of Bernardo Tolomei, the founder of their Olivetan Benedictine Order.

May

• The fourth of four members of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians from India, Hawaii’s newest religious order, arrives on the Big Island in May to serve at St. Joseph Parish and School, Hilo.
• May 4 marks the 150th anniversary of the Sacred Hearts Sisters’ arrival in the islands.
• Maui resident Cynthia Lallo is hired as the diocese’s new full-time development director on May 25.

June

• On June 13 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, island-born Marvin Bearis is ordained a priest for the Capuchin Franciscan Order and is assigned to Hawaii.
• Bishop Silva ordains Jon Cabico, the first Hawaii-born man in 17 years to become a diocesan priest for the Diocese of Honolulu, on June 29 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
• After 109 years of service, the Franciscan Sisters served their last day at St. Joseph School, Hilo, on June 30, bringing to an end their longest, consecutive U.S. academic assignment.
• The Diocese of Honolulu holds an orientation program for foreign-born priests serving in Hawaii on June 30-July 1.

July

• Father Marvin Samiano becomes the diocese’s new judicial vicar as of July 1. Assisting him as a part-time tribunal judge is Father Steve Nguyen.
• A Father Damien Legacy Dinner on July 18 at the Sheraton Waikiki helps raise money to send Kalaupapa residents to the October canonization of Father Damien.
• With the addition of seminarian Makana Aiona, the son of Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, the number of seminarians studying to be priests for the Diocese of Honolulu rises to eight, the largest group in many years.

August

• The Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation donates $300,000 to Star of the Sea Parish and Schools.
• St. Francis and St. Louis Schools and St. Anthony, Kailua, and St. Ann Parishes each received $500,000 from the Henry H. Wong Fund.
• The Capuchin Franciscans celebrate 25 years in Hawaii on Aug. 13 with a Mass at Resurrection of the Lord Church in Waipio, Oahu.

September

• Maryknoll School’s long-awaited community center and gymnasium is blessed on Sept. 4 before the entire student body.
• Holy Cross Church, Kalaheo, Kauai, finishes a year of 100th anniversary celebrations with a Sept. 12 Mass presided over by Bishop Silva.
• Also celebrating 100 years on Sept. 12 is Sacred Hearts Academy, the all-girls, preschool through grade 12 school founded by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts in Kaimuki, Oahu.
• Chaminade University of Honolulu installs its ninth president, Marianist Brother Bernard Ploeger, on Sept. 19.
• In a Sept. 21 letter, the principal and pastor of St. Joseph School in Makawao, Maui, announce that the kindergarten through grade five school will become a preschool only starting with the 2010-2011 school year.
• The Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Kalihi Valley, originally St. Anthony Orphanage and later a home for unwed mothers, run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, turns 100 on Sept. 29.

October

• St. Joseph Church in Kaumakani, Kauai, a mission of St. Theresa Parish in Kekaha which had served sugar plantation workers for 60 years, celebrates its last Mass on Oct. 10, coinciding with the last harvest of the Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation, which owned the church building and land.
• Pope Benedict XVI canonizes Father Damien de Veuster and four others on Oct. 11 in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Bishop Larry Silva and hundreds of Hawaii residents are present. Three hundred twenty-six from Hawaii, including 11 from Kalaupapa, had traveled to Belgium, Oct. 3 to 6, to begin the official St. Damien Canonization trip. There Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels presided at an Oct. 4 Mass in Damien’s birthplace of Tremelo, which the king and queen of Belgium attended. On Oct. 5, the Hawaii group visited Damien’s tomb in Leuven. On Oct. 6, the Belgian tour joined more than 200 more pilgrims from Hawaii in Rome for the canonization. The official tour includes liturgies in other famous Rome basilicas and a side trip to Assisi. Other groups from Hawaii besides the official tour also make the trip to Belgium and Rome. Meanwhile, on Oct. 11 in Kalaupapa, residents quietly celebrate the canonization with a Mass, procession and party.
• At a general papal audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Holy Trinity School teachers and students on Oct. 14, present Pope Benedict XVI with a painting/mosaic of St. Damien made by the late Hawaii artist Peggy Chun in collaboration with students of Holy Trinity School in Kuliouou.
• Joy Bulosan, formerly the vicar general’s executive assistant, becomes Bishop Silva’s administrative assistant on Oct. 19.
• The St. Damien foot bone relic makes its first return stop in the United States at Detroit’s cathedral, Oct. 13. It then visits San Francisco, Oct. 15; Oakland, Oct. 16; the Big Island, Oct. 17-24; Maui, Oct. 24-27; Lanai, Oct. 27-28; and Kauai, Oct. 28-30.
• Damien’s relic is brought to topside Molokai for Masses on Oct. 30. Five youth carry the relic of St. Damien down the Kalaupapa trail on Oct, 31 where it’s met by Belgian Cardinal Danneels, Bishop Silva, 12 visiting California bishops and a crowd of others. The cardinal presides at a Mass with the relic in St. Philomena Church, Kalawao, before it is flown to Honolulu.

November

• The arrival of a priest from the Philippines allows north shore Maui parishes St. Rita, Haiku, and Holy Rosary, Paia, to be “de-clustered” on Nov. 1 and each have its own pastor for the first time since 1995.
• The diocese’s new director of youth and young adult ministry, Lisa Gomes, starts her job, the first time the diocese has had such a position since the 1990s.
• On Nov. 1 St. Damien’s relic is venerated at a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace before being carried in procession on a koa “canoe” to Iolani Palace for an outdoor public civic/interfaith ceremony and then installed in its final resting place, a reliquary in the cathedral.
• The final official St. Damien canonization event is a Mass, luau and celebration for 300 on Nov. 7 in Kalaupapa and Kalawao, Molokai.
• The Diocese of Honolulu announces the 22 deacon candidates (and 20 wives of candidates) in its seventh deacon class. This class will be the first to go through five years of deacon formation. Earlier classes had four.
• Chaminade University of Honolulu on Nov. 25 announces pledges of $5 million from Dr. Edison Miyawaki and $1 million from Dr. Lawrence Tseu, both donations made in honor of their wives, to go toward the university’s new school of nursing which opens in 2010.
• Also on Nov. 25, the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation presents St. John the Baptist School, Kalihi, with a check for $1.5 million to build a new computer and science building, possibly the largest single donation ever to a Hawaii Catholic grade school.
• The Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Kalihi-Palama donates a 60-foot tall Norfolk pine to be the 2009 Honolulu City Lights’ tree at Honolulu Hale.

December

• After renovations over the summer and fall which, among other things, changed the orientation of its interior and replaced the primary wooden furnishings with marble ones, the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus is rededicated, Dec. 10.
• The With Grateful Hearts Concert at the Farrington High School Auditorium, Dec. 14, gets dozens of priests and nuns singing and dancing to promote vocations, much to the audience’s delight.
• The pledge-solicitation phase of the diocesan With Grateful Hearts capital campaign closes with pledges totaling more than $57 million, far exceeding its $30 million goal. Virtually every parish in Hawaii comes in over goal. The money is to be collected over five years.