NEWS FROM PAGES PAST
50 years ago — May 26, 1967
Pope Paul kisses a crippled boy, who was chosen to present to the Pontiff a donation for the Pope’s India famine fund, collected by the children cared for by Rome’s Don Gnocchi Institute.
25 years ago — May 22, 1992
Father Alencastre dies; was one of Hawaii’s first island-born priests
Father Matthew Alencastre lies buried beside his parents in St. Peter’s Church graveyard in Hana, Maui.
The Sacred Hearts priest was 76 years old when he died peacefully Friday evening, May 8, at St. Patrick’s Monastery in Honolulu.
After more than 40 productive years of parish work on three islands, Father Matthew was finally assigned to the place he had left as a boy, his birthplace – Hana.
He served the parish and three mission churches of that remote area for the past seven years leaving them all fixed up and remodeled and debt free.
Father Matthew was one of the first four island-born priests whose ordinations a half-century ago helped usher in the new Diocese of Honolulu. The last missionary bishop, Stephen Alencastre was a relative.
10 years ago — May 18, 2007
Pope to Latin Americans: focus on Jesus
On a five-day visit to Latin America, Pope Benedict XVI identified a host of social and religious challenges and said the church should respond by focusing more clearly on the person of Jesus Christ.
“This is the faith that has made America ‘the continent of hope.’ Not a political ideology, not a social movement, not an economic system: faith in the God who is love – who took flesh, died and rose in Jesus Christ,” the pope said on the final day of his May 9-13 visit to Brazil.
It was a comment echoed in many of his encounters, which included a rally with young people, the canonization of the first Brazilian-born saint, and the inauguration of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Carribean. …
The crowds that showed up for papal events were enthusiastic but smaller than foreseen by trip planners in Brazil, the largest Catholic country in the world. There were empty spaces at both of his outdoor Masses, and the crowds along some of his motorcade routes were sparse.