Bishop Larry Silva will be the spiritual director on pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to Kalaupapa, Molokai, this year.
The bishop is scheduled to make an 11-day trip with Hawaii pilgrims to the Holy Land, April 27 to May 7. The tour was designed for the Diocese of Honolulu by Faith Journeys, an Arizona-based travel company. Father Wilson Buitrago, the Colombian priest who is chaplain of Maui’s Catholic Hispanic community, will be the pilgrimage host. The trip offers an optional four-day extension to Rome, May 7-10.
Bishop Silva will also lead three one-day pilgrimages, March 8, July 18, and Oct. 4, to Kalaupapa, where St. Damien and St. Marianne dedicated their lives to Hawaii’s quarantined Hansen’s disease patients.
The cost of the Holy Land trip is $4,745, based on a minimum of 20 travelers, and includes airfare from Honolulu, U.S. taxes, fees and fuel surcharges up to $700. The land-only price for those with self-arranged airfare is $2,317. Add $1,880 for the Rome extension.
The Holy Land pilgrimage includes visits to Bethlehem, Jericho, Nazareth, Cana, Capernaum, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and the Qumran Valley.
Historic destinations include the Church of the Nativity, the Mount of Beatitudes, the Church of the Transfiguration, Mount of Olives, Wailing Wall, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
For information about the Holy Land tour, call Faith Journeys at 1-877-732-4845.
The Kalaupapa pilgrimages include round-trip charter air transportation from Honolulu, a guided tour of Kalaupapa and Kalawao, Mass at St. Philomena Church, a picnic-style lunch and commemorative pilgrimage guide.
Travelers will see the original graves of St. Damien and St. Marianne and other significant spots on the historic peninsula during a tour that runs approximately 8 a.m.-3 p.m.
The Kalaupapa trip costs $399. Space is limited to 40 persons per tour. For more details, call Ed Lane with Seawind Tours & Travel, Inc. at (808) 791-5403.
This bishop’s tour to the Holy Land this year will be his second as Bishop of Honolulu. He led a similar tour in 2011. He also led a pilgrimage with Hawaii’s Knights of Malta to Lourdes in 2013 and, that same year, an Alaskan “cruise of reflection and renewal” for Hawaii deacons.
Bishop Silva regularly leads visits to Kalaupapa, for special groups and the general public.
Other official diocesan tours have included a 2011 Mediterranean cruise with diocesan vicar general Father Gary Secor that visited Rome and the Holy Land, among other places; and a diocesan pilgrimage in 2012 to Dublin, Ireland, for the 50th International Eucharistic Congress led by vicar for clergy Father Maruel Hewe.
The diocese also sponsored tours with Bishop Silva to Belgium and Rome for the canonization of St. Damien in 2009, and to Syracuse, N.Y., and Rome for the canonization of St. Marianne in 2012.
The bishop also traveled with Hawaii groups to World Youth Days in Australia, Madrid and Brazil.
