By Father Louis H. Yim | Special to the Herald

After 80 years, the Society of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers will bid us “aloha oe.” This summer they close the doors of their Center House on Dole Street leaving behind an impressive legacy of ministerial service in the history of the Catholic Church of these islands. As the late Maryknoll Father Laurence S. Vaughan once commented: “(We) missionaries attempt to work (ourselves) out of a job.”

In 1924 the Hawaii Catholic mission wrote to the Vatican requesting priests from the American mainland to minister in the rapidly changing Territory of Hawaii. The Sacred Propaganda Fide in Rome asked the newly established (1911) Society of American Missioners (later called Maryknoll) to respond to Hawaii’s request.

On Feb. 4, 1927, the first Maryknollers, Father William S. Kress and Brother Philip Morini, arrived in Honolulu. Their time of arrival was historically significant. The year 1927 was the 100th anniversary of the landing of Hawaii’s first Catholic missionaries, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary from France.

Bishop Stephen P. Alencastre placed the two newcomers at Sacred Heart Church, Punahou. For the next 71 years, this church would be considered the venerable “Maryknoll parish” of the Diocese of Honolulu. During this period, the parish recorded a Maryknoll staff that totaled 13 pastors, more than 60 associate pastors, and six brothers. Sacred Heart’s last Maryknoll pastor was Father Francis A. Diffley who left in June 1998.

One of Father Kress’s major undertakings at Punahou was the construction of Maryknoll Grade School and acquiring the Maryknoll Sisters to manage it. Officially called the Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic (founded in 1912), these nuns function independently of the fathers and brothers while sharing the same missionary vision and goal: to make Christ known in “the field afar.”

On Sept. 2, 1927, 10 Maryknoll sisters arrived on Matson’s “The City of Honolulu.” Six were assigned to the new school at Punahou and four were sent to take over St. Ann’s School in Heeia which for years had been managed by the devoted John McCabe family.

Happy with the generous response of these Maryknoll religious, Bishop Alencastre broadened the Christian education program in Hawaii. In the following years the Maryknoll Sisters were involved with more schools: St. Anthony, Wailuku, Maui (1928), St. Anthony, Kalihi (1928), St. Augustine, Waikiki (1929), St. Michael, Waialua (1944), St. John, Kalihi (1959). In 1931, the sisters, with Father Frederick E. Fitzgerald, the second Maryknoll pastor at Punahou, started Maryknoll High School with a single freshman class. On June 14, 1935, the class of 13 seniors — seven girls and six boys — became the first graduates of the high school.

The church on School Street

In the summer of 1927, Bishop Alencastre made plans for a new church and school in the Palama district of Honolulu. He asked Maryknoll for a priest, and later, sisters for this new project. Father John H. Murray, previously stationed in China, arrived that September to become the founding pastor of the proposed St. Vincent Ferrer Church on School Street.

Residing at the Honolulu cathedral a little more than a mile away, Father Murray spent his pastoral time visiting the Catholics in Palama and Kalihi, informing and preparing them for the new church. On one occasion, it has been recorded, he had youngsters from the cathedral area challenge the boys of St. Anthony’s Orphanage in Kalihi Valley to a baseball game with the donation proceeds going toward the future St. Vincent Ferrer Church. It has never been recorded how much Father collected from the event. However, three years went by and nothing developed on the School Street church property. Because of the difficult financial situation of this period, the bishop was unable to build the church.

In late 1930, Father Murray was transferred to the Maryknoll Japanese mission in Seattle. The School Street church was finally built in the summer of 1931, not only with a different pastor but also with a change of name. It stands today as the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus.

Maryknoll Father Joseph Michael Henry in front of his St. Anthony's rectory in Kailua

Fathers Hughes and Henry

When the Hawaii mission was elevated to a diocese under Bishop James J. Sweeney in September 1941, a Maryknoller became part of the new chancery office. He was Father James Ryan Hughes who arrived in January 1941. After the Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor attack, Bishop Sweeney, faced with the numerous challenges presented by war-time conditions, enlisted Father Hughes “pro tempore” as chancellor and as superintendent of Catholic schools. In 1942, two San Francisco priests, Msgr. Edwin J. Kennedy and Father Charles Gienger took over those two positions respectively.

But other tasks kept this Maryknoll priest busy. Father Hughes was editor of the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Herald, from 1942 to 1946, and was involved with the spiritual welfare of Hawaii’s military personnel. On one occasion, in 1944, he conducted a retreat for several thousand soldiers in Schofield Barracks Bowl before they shipped out for the invasion of Leyte in the Philippines. Father Hughes left Hawaii in the summer of 1946 to teach at the Maryknoll seminary in New York.

In the 1940s and 50s, there was a growing exodus of Christian missionaries from their stations throughout Asia because of the war and civil turmoil. It was during this period that Maryknoll veterans who maintained missions in a strife-ridden China were dubbed with the endearing term “Old China Hands.” Many of these displaced missionaries relocated to Hawaii.

From 1927 until the present, nearly 130 Maryknoll priests, some briefly, others for a lifetime, have seen service in these Hawaiian Islands. Through all these years, Maryknollers have been involved with 23 parishes, mostly on the Island of Hawaii. At their height, it has been estimated that more than 50 Maryknoll priests were here at one given time.

One “Old China Hand” deserves mentioning — Father Joseph Michael Henry, better known as “Mike” Henry to his clergy friends. In 1935, he served in a Manchuria mission, later was imprisoned for a year during the Japanese occupation, and departed the Orient in 1949 when the Communists took over China. Father Henry then came to Hawaii and never left. For the next 24 years he was the busy pastor of St. Anthony Church, Kailua, well-known and loved by all in the community.

Almost immediately upon his arrival, Father Henry sat down with architect John McAuliffe to lay out a master plan for the entire parish plant. In the years that followed, he put up a large school with an enrollment of more than 700 students, a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and in 1968 a magnificent church that, sadly, was partially destroyed by fire in 1982. He was “a very priestly man” to whom many went for advice and counseling.

He had a great interest for the youth in the parish. He maintained a religious education (CCD) program for over 1,200 public school students. He fostered religious vocations, particularly the diocesan priesthood, among the young people. Father Marc R. Alexander, the diocesan vicar general, could attest to the influence this pastor made on him as a youngster in St. Anthony parish.

Father Henry was an active pastor until the day he died, at age 72, on Nov. 13, 1974. Following his funeral in his beloved St. Anthony Church, he was laid to rest in the Maryknoll plot of Diamond Head Cemetery in Honolulu.

‘They also serve …’

It is easy to overlook the work of the brothers in a religious community. They are not there in the limelight, so to speak, but what they did and what they accomplished was essential to the success of their community’s mission. In the words of the poet Milton, “They also serve ...”

In the 80 years of Maryknoll’s involvement, nine brothers served, at different times, in the islands. They were Brothers Philip Morini (1927-1932), Marius Donnelly (1932-1945), Adrian Riley (1945-1947), Robert Brooks (1947-1951), Francis Hutz (1951-1951), Venard Ruane (1952-2007), Bernard Hansan (1945-1946), John LaMotte (1946-1948), and Duane Crockett (1958-1974).

In the parishes and schools, they were athletic directors, scout leaders, bus drivers, bookkeepers, maintenance workers, catechism teachers, altar servers, eucharistic ministers, etc., etc. Six brothers, at different periods, were stationed at Sacred Heart Parish, Punahou. The other three were assigned on the Big Island. Brother Adrian Riley died of a heart attack at age 44 in the Punahou rectory on Feb. 3, 1947. He is buried in the Maryknoll’s Diamond Head plot.

Only two brothers who served in Hawaii are still living. Brother Duane Crockett, 84, and Brother Venard Ruane, 80, reside at the Maryknoll Retirement Center in Los Altos, Calif.

Island-born Maryknollers

Although it is Maryknoll’s policy not to recruit vocations in Hawaii for its own Society, exceptions were made for four Hawaii-born men.

Father Richard B. (“Dusty”) Rhodes, a 1920 Punahou High School graduate, was ordained on June 16, 1928, and spent over 60 years in China and Taiwan.

Father Ralph W. Sylva was in Maryknoll High School’s first graduating class of 1935. He was ordained on June 10, 1945, and served in Mexico, Bolivia and Hawaii.

Father Anthony V. Rodrigues, a graduate of St. Louis College, Kaimuki, was ordained on June 12, 1954, and served in Bolivia. He later joined the Trappist Order and then enlisted in the U.S. Army chaplaincy corp.

Father Clyde Philips, a 1961 graduate of St. Joseph High School, Hilo, was ordained on May 20, 1978, and served in the Philippines. Today he serves in New York as Maryknoll’s United States regional superior.

When the first Maryknoller, Father Kress, arrived in Honolulu 80 years ago, he was asked to deliver the homily at the solemn pontifical Mass for the centennial celebration of the Catholic Faith in Hawaii. The Mass was celebrated on May 15, 1927, on a platform fronting the steps of Iolani Palace in Honolulu before public leaders and dignitaries and thousands of people crowding the lawn of the palace grounds.

One local reporter described Father Kress’s sermon as “a strong pulsing message.” In pointing out the struggles and the disappointments of the first missionaries in 1827, Father Kress made this closing remark: “There are no failures in a service given to God.”

Today, as the men of Maryknoll close out 80 years of mission service to the people of “Hawaii Nei,” the same words could be applied to them: “There are no failures...” In God’s eyes, we would think, each one of these missionaries is indeed a success story.

Epilogue

Two Maryknollers have decided not to pack up their luggage and move on. Father John F. Soltis, after many years in Korea and, recently in Hawaii, will serve the parishioners of St. Philomena Church, Honolulu. Father Thomas B. Killackey, with more than 50 years of parish assignments on Oahu and the Island of Hawaii, continues his ministry at St. John Apostle and Evangelist Church, Mililani.