The diocese announced Oct. 11 the appointment of Blessed Sacrament Father Robert Stark as the new Office for Social Ministry director, replacing Carol Ignacio who retires Nov. 1.
Father Stark has worked for the Social Ministry Office since 2010 as its resource developer/community organizer. He has been involved in recruiting, organizing and training Hawaii Catholics to support and sustain the diocese’s housing and homeless ministries.
The Blessed Sacrament priest has worked in community and social justice causes on the Mainland and in Latin America since his seminary days in the early 1970s.
Prior to arriving in Hawaii by way of Chicago, Father Stark spent 15 years in New Mexico with the New Mexico Community Foundation. He served as its executive director for nine years. Under his leadership, the foundation’s aid to mostly immigrants and Native Americans grew from $70,000 to $7 million a year.
He has also worked in Central America and the Caribbean in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was the executive director of Policy Alternatives on Central America and the Caribbean, a non-governmental multinational organization which organized wide religious support of recommendations regarding U.S. policy in relation to those regions.
Ordained in 1977, he has a doctorate in social ethics from the University of Chicago Divinity School and has also served as a parish priest.
Father Stark will be based in the Office for Social Ministry’s main headquarters at St. Stephen Diocesan Center in Kaneohe.