While it’s hard to be ‘just a normal guy,’ Bishop Silva enjoys traveling, meals out with friends, and snorkeling

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Once he became the Bishop of Honolulu, Larry Silva was no longer a “normal” guy or a “normal” priest.

But even bishops need downtime from hectic days filled with official duties. And they have “normal” interests and habits. Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario liked golf. Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo liked home improvement projects. Bishop Silva enjoys traveling, meals out with friends, and snorkeling.

In an interview with the Hawaii Catholic Herald at his residence at St. Stephen Diocesan Center, Bishop Silva talked about coping with the pressures of his official life as bishop and what he likes to do in his free time.

No typical day

While Bishop Silva says he does not have a typical day, his official duties include presiding at daily Mass, appointments and meetings, correspondence and paperwork, and regular travel between islands.

Other bishop favorites Poet: E.E. Cummings. Collectible: nativity scenes Hiking path: Makapuu Lighthouse trail Music: all kinds (“except country”) especially Hawaiian, classical, choral

Bishop Silva gets up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and spends an hour in prayer either before or after celebrating morning Mass, often at the Carmelite Monastery on the grounds of the diocesan center, which is located just off the Pali Highway about a mile from the tunnels on the Kailua side.

Every other day Bishop Silva tries to get to 24-Hour Fitness where he has a membership. If he can’t make it to the gym, he’ll sometimes exercise in a small workout room at the diocesan center.

In the evening, he reads, catches up on e-mail and watches the 10 p.m. news, the only television he regularly watches. He aims to be in bed by 11 p.m., but sometimes it’s closer to 11:30 p.m. or midnight.

“I would say I am a morning and evening person,” Bishop Silva said. “I don’t do well in the afternoon. That’s my slow time.”

Monday is the bishop’s day off.

“As much as possible, I do try and take Monday off because I feel it’s important to take the Sabbath day. And Sunday is not usually a day off for me,” he said.

On his day off, Bishop Silva frequently goes snorkeling with the diocesan director of vocations, Father Peter Dumag, who got him interested in the activity this past year. The two have swam at Hanauma Bay, Waimea Bay, Turtle Bay, Ko Olina and Sand Island.

Father Gary Secor, pastor of Holy Trinity in Kuliouou and a long-time friend, said that though it can be hard, Bishop Silva finds a balance between work and off-time.

“He realizes he needs to take breaks,” he said. “He always used to give me a hard time because I wasn’t very good about taking my day off.”

Seminary days

As a seminarian in the 1970s at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif., Bishop Silva was known as a studious and hard worker. He sang in the choir and participated on various committees.

At St. Patrick, the Hawaii-born and California-raised student became friends with the small group of Hawaii seminarians, including Father Secor, who was two years behind him.

“Unlike some of us who were more procrastinators, he was much more organized in that respect,” he said. “He’s not a slouch at all.”

Bishop Silva took trips to Hawaii almost every year during and after his time in the seminary. Father Secor said that was because “he felt he had a connection here from the past” and because “he does not like cold.”

St. Patrick’s outdated heating system wasn’t sufficient for seminarian Silva, who brought in his own space heater to beat back the Bay Area chill.

“One of the things he was famous for in the seminary was that his room was like a blast furnace,” Father Secor laughed.

Traveling man

Four miniature planes sit on the top of a bookshelf and a small globe rests on the desk in Bishop Silva’s private office in his St. Stephen residence. They reflect the bishop’s love of travel and flying.

The bishop says he’s always loved to travel and once even thought about taking flying lessons.

While in the seminary, Bishop Silva and Father Secor would sometimes kill time sitting in a parking lot near the San Francisco Airport and watch planes take off and land.

Since becoming bishop, Bishop Silva has racked up the frequent flier miles. Since April alone, he has made 20 trips to the neighbor islands and four to the Mainland. In addition, he took two short vacation trips, both at the end of official diocesan business travel.

Internationally, Bishop Silva spent three days last December in Mexico City on a personal pilgrimage for the 475th anniversary of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And in late December and early January he traveled with Father Dumag to the Philippines on a two-week diocesan trip.

Bishops are allowed to take up to a month of vacation annually. Bishop Silva usually divides that into several shorter breaks each year, something he has done since he was ordained a priest.

Bishop Silva has been to most of Western Europe, the Azores, Israel, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Mexico. He’d like to go to Africa, including Egypt, and Vietnam and fly over the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

He says he likes big cities and that his favorite destinations are Rome and Mexico City. When he’s in the Oakland area he enjoys walking around Lake Merritt where the new Cathedral of Christ the Light is being built.

Bishop Silva learned to speak Spanish fluently when he was in the seminary, spending two summers at an intensive language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It helped him in his work at different parishes in California.

Hobbies, successful and not so

The bishop is an avid reader — of theological books, “Newsweek,” and the Catholic publications “Inside the Vatican,” “30 Days” and “L’Osservatore Romano.”

Bishop Silva played some basketball growing up, but says it’s “nothing to get into the news about.” He doesn’t follow a particular sports team.

Besides snorkeling, the bishop tried windsurfing about 15 years ago and enjoyed the challenge, though he said he wasn’t very good at it. He’d like to try scuba diving.

He once made a very brief foray into skateboarding.

“My entire skateboard career lasted about five seconds when I was about 30,” Bishop Silva said. “I was visiting some friends, and as we walked down the road, their 10-year-old son had a skateboard. I said I would like to try it. I did, quickly fell off and broke my arm!”

A friend indeed

While his aptitude for skateboarding may not be very high, the bishop is known to be very good at friendships. Father Secor says he always remembers family and friends on birthdays and anniversaries.

“He very much values friendship and he’s a very loyal friend,” he said. “If you have him as a friend, you have a good friend.”

Bishop Silva says he enjoys having people come visit him in Hawaii, some of whom stay at St. Stephen Diocesan Center.

Father Dennis Koshko, the pastor of St. Anthony Church in Kailua, was in the same seminary class as the bishop.

While he never expected his classmate to become the Bishop of Honolulu, Father Koshko said he is great at the job. He describes him as an “all around good guy” who remains as friendly and engaging as he was at the seminary.

“He’s always inviting the priests to be a little bit better than they are,” he said. “I think he’s making us as clergy a little sharper.”

On a personal level, Father Koshko remembers the bishop’s support when his father died 20 days after Father Koshko was ordained. Coming back from Hawaii to California, it was Silva that picked him up at the airport and periodically visited his mother.

“It was not until some years later that I learned that he was pretty faithful about checking in on my mom and seeing if she was doing OK,” he said. “That was deeply touching, that a brother priest would be so sensitive to that loss.”

Food and fellowship

Bishop Silva says that eating in or out, the best way to spend a meal is with good friends. “I do spend a lot of time visiting friends and usually eating with them,” he said. “It’s a way to get together with people.”

He usually eats out on Monday, his day off. Some of his favorite restaurants on Oahu are Haleiwa Joe’s in Kaneohe, the Hau Tree Lanai Restaurant, and E & O Trading Company. Father Secor says you can count on Bishop Silva to know the best Mexican restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area.

When not eating out, the bishop and Msgr. Daniel Dever and Father Khanh Hoang, who also live at St. Stephen, have personal chef Judy Hartke cook for them. She places an emphasis on healthy, organic food.

Bishop Silva says she’s a great cook. However, he says, “I make up for her healthy cooking by eating less healthy things elsewhere.”

Hartke says the bishop isn’t a picky eater. “He’s a very easy person to cook for because he’s always happy with whatever I serve him.”

The bishop loves Mexican food and says his favorite dishes are probably chicken mole and enchiladas. Hartke says he likes to snack on cracked seed, chips and salsa, and diet root beer.

And he drinks several cups of regular coffee throughout the day, and a cup of decaf in the evening.

After all, a busy bishop needs a little pick-me-up now and then.