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50 years ago — June 21, 1968
Honolulu’s First Bishop Dies on 70th Birthday
June 19, 1968, was only five hours old when the Reverend James J. Sweeney died at St. Mary Hospital in San Francisco, California. Bishop Sweeney lived only five hours of his seventieth birthday. …
In one more day, June 20, 1968, Bishop Sweeney would have observed his 43rd anniversary as a priest of God because it was on June 20, 1925, that Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco imposed his hands upon the head of the young aspirant to the priesthood and invoked the Holy Spirit upon him and anointed his hands for sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the Mass. …
On March 13, 1968, Pope Paul VI accepted Bishop Sweeney’s resignation as head of the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. The resignation was offered and accepted because of the declining health of Bishop Sweeney, who has been a patient at St. Mary’s Hospital since last October. At the same time, Pope Paul VI appointed the Most Reverend John J. Scanlan as the second bishop of Honolulu.
Bishop Sweeney will be buried at his home parish of St. Paul in San Francisco. The burial will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday, June 22). …
Bishop Sweeney will be laid to rest in the family plot near his parents.
Bishop Sweeney was a quiet man who shunned publicity. Yet he was a dynamo of work and activity. … During the first twenty-five years of his guidance of the diocese, he increased the number of parishes from 42 to 63. With this increase there was a growth in the Catholic population from 120,000 souls to 220,000. At the time of his anniversary in 1966 there were 45 missions besides the parishes.
He will always be remembered for his efforts in behalf of Catholic education. In 1941 there were 19 Catholic schools, both high and elementary. By 1966 this number had grown to 43, which included one college and two seminaries.
Editor’s note: Bishop Larry Silva will be celebrating the noon Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace on Tuesday, June 19, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Bishop James Sweeney.
