Bishop Larry Silva counts ‘building relationships with priests’ as the biggest achievement of his first year

By Patrick Downes, Hawaii Catholic Herald

Bishop Larry Silva said that his biggest accomplishment over the past year has been “building relationships with the clergy, particularly the priests.”

“That stands out to me,” he said. “It certainly has been life-giving to me; hopefully to them, too. I hope so.”

Bishop Silva reflected on his first year as bishop on June 27 from the sofa in his fourth floor office in the downtown Chancery building.

“Does it seem like a whole year already?” The Hawaii Catholic Herald had to ask.

“I would say that it seems like a year has gone by,” the bishop responded matter of factly.

“It’s been a great year,” he added. “People have been very welcoming. Lots of wonderful things are going on here; a lot of people involved in many ministries. I feel very blessed to be here.”

Tokens of that welcome decorate his office. A koa canoe paddle gleams from its mount on one wall. Beneath it, a fluid blue abstract ceramic of the Madonna and Child by artist Yukio Ozaki, a gift from Chaminade University of Honolulu, anchors one end of a credenza.

Against another wall, behind his flat computer screen, a wooden Hawaiian spear from Malia Puka O Kalani Parish on the Big Island stands ready for the bishop as “spiritual warrior.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter on parchment appointing Bishop Silva as Bishop of Honolulu hangs in a gilt frame by the door.

The rest is an eclectic mix, artistically — the bishop’s coat of arms rendered large in stained glass hanging in the window, Samoan kava bowls, Dietrich Varez prints, Salvador Dali pieces, and reproductions of medieval European frescos.

One small glazed tile painting from Assisi, Italy, shows the apostles in a boat hauling in a netload of fish — a biblical image of apostleship and priesthood, a theme close to the bishop’s heart.

Shortly after he was ordained and installed last July 21, the bishop had expressed his great desire to “work with the priests, have gatherings with them, talks with them, socials with them, spiritual renewal opportunities with them.”

So far, achieving that goal has been a mixed bag.

“I have met with the priests in their vicariates and usually there has been some sort of social connected with that,” he said. “I have not done it as much as I hoped to. Other things come up and you just get busy.”

Bishop Silva said he is looking forward to an afternoon with all the priests on July 27 at St. Stephen Diocesan Center. He described the occasion as a “little dialogue between priests and bishop” followed by evening prayer and dinner.

“One of the things I want to talk about is developing our spirituality,” he said, “making sure that we have spiritual directors.”

“A lot of priests don’t have spiritual directors for various reasons. They don’t know what resources are available.”

Bishop Silva would have liked to have met his priests “one on one” this past year, but “time is a factor and I just didn’t have the time to do that,” he said.

Hawaii has about 120 priests in active ministry and another 30 who are retired.

Lots of flying

The bishop has indeed been busy, doing mostly bishop kinds of things — traveling, going to meetings, receiving visitors, giving talks, attending special events, administering Confirmation and presiding at special Masses.

Air travel his first year will have taken him off the island 39 times, including six times to the mainland and once to Rome.

It’s a pace he expects to keep up. The mainland trips are primarily for national and regional bishops meetings, he explained. The inter-island trips he considers essential.

“I am bishop of the whole diocese so I think I should be around as much as I can.”

A good portion of his island hopping was due to the 41 confirmation ceremonies at which he presided.

“I did want to do as many as I could this year just to get acquainted with the parishes,” he said. “Maybe I won’t do quite so many next year.”

“People have told me I need to slow down,” Bishop Silva said. But he doesn’t think he will.

“I’ve always been a hard worker so I don’t mind working hard. Sometimes I feel a little frazzled, but really not too often.”

Blessed Damien and Marianne

There’s a reason, besides confirmation, to account for Bishop Silva’s six visits to the tiny island of Molokai. Two reasons, actually — Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne, Hawaii’s candidates for sainthood who lived their final years of heroic virtue on the Friendly Isle.

On this topic the reserved bishop becomes slightly more effusive. He wants to promote more devotion to the two “Blesseds,” locally and beyond Hawaii’s shores. He wants pilgrimages, spiritual booklets, holy cards, education programs and festive feasts.

In January he created a committee to handle these chores. The 10-member Father Damien/Mother Marianne Commission has been charged with “promoting the canonizations of Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne, renewing the spirituality of Hawaii Catholics through their example, and developing Damien and Marianne-related pilgrimages, particularly to Kalaupapa,” among other things.

“It’s a good group,” Bishop Silva said. “We are trying to establish curricula for the schools and religious education programs. We are trying to get the word out beyond the diocese.”

The bishop is doing his part. He passed out Mother Marianne brochures at a recent U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops meeting. He asked the western U.S. bishops if they would consider putting her feast day on their diocesan calendars. (They said yes.) He also distributed Mother Marianne material at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif.

The pilgrimages he envisions are “prayerful tours” to places Damien and Marianne worked.

The commission itself will make such a pilgrimage to Kalaupapa the first weekend of November, Bishop Silva said.

“If we are going to promote a pilgrimage, we ought to go on a pilgrimage.”

Vocations to the priesthood

Early in his episcopacy, Bishop Silva made the promotion of vocations to the priesthood a priority. He thought that priests should do more to endorse their own calling. He felt they were “hesitant to invite young men to consider the priesthood.”

But that is changing, he said.

“I see the priests doing much more,” he said. “I hear them talking about it; I hear them talking about particular people in their parishes. Once in a while I hear them talking to that particular person about it.”

“So the consciousness level has been raised. We have to continue to keep that up.”

Another positive sign, he said, is the forming of an ad hoc vocations committee by the diocesan Presbyteral, or priests, Council.

On top of that, he announced, “if all goes well,” the diocese should have seven seminarians by September.

That’s six more than it has now.

The new seminarians are mostly men switching to the diocese from religious orders and communities, the bishop said.

Bishop Silva ordained his first priest, Sacred Hearts Father Johnathan Hurrell last Nov. 25.

Learning on the job

The new bishop said his first year has not revealed any particular “surprises,” but he did learn a few things about the diocese he did not know before.

“I learned that there are a lot more lay movements than I ever thought there were,” he said.

The diocesan directory lists 29; additional apostolates and associations are not listed.

The bishop also said he discovered that many parishes had substantial outreach programs.

The episcopal paperwork that swamped the inexperienced bishop at the beginning is still a challenge, he said, “although I think I’m getting a little bit better at managing it.”

“One of the things that I have tried to do is take a day a week where I would not come into the office, where I would catch up on paper work and writing talks and things.”

Preparing homilies and talks also demands a substantial effort from the bishop who likes to read from texts he has written and polished. In addition to giving sermons, the bishop has presented talks at commencement ceremonies, historic commemorations, marches and rallies and before various organizations.

“God is good and I manage to find time somewhere to prepare them,” he said, though not always as much time as he would like.

Long range planning

Other initiatives of the new bishop are taking shape.

Nine months ago, he announced that he wanted the diocese to begin a process of long-range planning.

“It is in the formation stages,” he said. “There is a committee.”

The committee that will start gathering data beginning on Kauai, the bishop said, probably in July.

It took the bishop six months to appoint his 18-member Presbyteral Council, one of his primary advisory groups. A second group, the mostly lay 14-member Diocesan Pastoral Council, will take a bit longer. He has asked his eight diocesan vicars to submit four nominees each by mid-July, but it’s been “a little slow,” he said.

“It is possible that we might just delay the process,” he said. “We’d like it to be done well.”

He meets with his Presbyteral Council every month, his eight-member College of Consultors every two months and his eight vicars forane (his local area representatives) every two months. These groups are composed exclusively of priests, many of whom belong to two or all three groups.

Bishop Silva says he also meets two or three times a month with his Administrative Advisory Council — three priests, one deacon and two laypeople.

What does the bishop see happening in the next 12 months?

“The planning process is going to unfold,” he said. “The putting together of the pastoral council.”

“I would hope to meet with the priests one on one and continue the vocation efforts,” he added.

The bishop will also ordain a new class of permanent deacons in January and February.