Hawaii has now become a chapter in my personal and priestly life. It has been a wonderful five years singing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.
By Father Ramon Danilo (Danny) R. Laeda
Special to the Hawaii Catholic Herald
On June 30, I ended my almost five years of priestly ministry in the Diocese of Honolulu. I arrived in Hawaii in early September 2014 to start my ministry in this particular church, joining a number of priests from the different parts of the world. We are called “international priests” because we are guests of the diocese; our place of incardination is somewhere else. Incardination is the status of belonging to a particular diocese, which is necessary in the exercise of a priest’s ministry as required by church law.
Through the agreement of two diocesan bishops (one sending and the other receiving) a priest can exercise his ministry outside of the diocese of his incardination. This is very common nowadays in the United States where many dioceses lack enough “native” clergy to staff their parishes and the other areas of ministry.
My coming to Hawaii in 2014 was not my first time in these islands. I first came in 1984 at the invitation of my cousin, my “hanai brother,” who immigrated to Hawaii five years earlier. It was a memorable visit. I met relatives and friends who had immigrated to Hawaii years before. The highlight was a reunion with my old mentor, Father Adrian R. Gervacio, who came to Hawaii in 1975. He was then pastor of St. Anthony in Kalihi.
Almost every year for the next three decades I spent a couple of weeks in Honolulu as a guest of the late Father Henry Sabog who took over St. Anthony when Father Gervacio became a U.S. Navy chaplain. I reunited with Father Gervacio when he returned to the diocese in 2006.
Over the years, I received invitations to minister in Hawaii. When I first met the late Honolulu Bishop Joseph Ferrario, he said, “If you are interested to work with us in the Honolulu diocese, just tell us.” I was not ready, thinking of the number of priests in my home diocese — barely enough to fill its needs.
I spent my sabbatical in Hawaii from August 1994 through June 1995, as a “sacramental priest” for Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Waikane and at St. Anthony Church in Kalihi. It was at this time when, recommended by the late Maryknoll Sister Grace Dorothy Lim and Religious of the Virgin Mary Sister Elnora Rilloraza, that Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo asked me to stay in Hawaii. Again, I did not take the offer because I was still needed back home. It took two more decades for me to decide to work in the Diocese of Honolulu. When I came in 2014, I was assigned as parochial vicar for the “inner city” Honolulu parish of Sts. Peter and Paul, then for the last two years as one of the chaplains of St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii.
Missionary history
The first Filipino priest to minister in Hawaii was Father Ignacio Cordero who arrived in 1917 from the then-Diocese of Nueva Segovia (Vigan, Ilocos Sur), which covered the Ilocos provinces. Filipino plantation workers started coming to Hawaii at the beginning of the 20th century. The Philippines had been annexed by the United States. By 1925, there were an estimated 50,000 Filipino workers, mostly Ilocanos, in the Territory of Hawaii.
The pastoral needs of the workers, who were mostly Catholic, became a concern to the then-Apostolic Vicariate of Honolulu, Bishop Stephen Alencastre. In 1926, he wrote to the bishop to Nueva Segovia asking for priests to minister to them. From April to August of 1927, Father Cordero worked on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. He was so successful that plantation managers petitioned to keep him in Hawaii, promising to provide his remuneration. Nueva Segovia could not spare a priest at that time but offered the stopgap solution, according to the archdiocesan archives, of Honolulu sending seminarians to be educated at the seminary in Vigan. Hawaii sent Benedict Vierra and Benito Caraballo. Both were ordained in 1940.
In 1949, Father Osmundo Calip, also of Nueva Segovia, came to Hawaii to do mission work. During his time, Filipino Catholic Clubs were founded in parishes. These associations still exist today. They hold their convention every year under the directorship of former Nueva Segovia priest, Father Edgar Brillantes, the present pastor of Our Lady of the Mount in Kalihi.
One outstanding result of Father Calip’s Hawaii mission was the ordination in 1961 of Hawaii’s first priest of Filipino ancestry, Father Henry Benedict Sabog, whose parents were from Laoag, Ilocos Norte. Father Sabog told me that it was Father Calip who convinced him to enter the seminary. The most recent Hawaii priest of Filipino descent, ordained for the Diocese of Honolulu in 2017, is Father Alfred Omar Bueno Guerrero, whose parents were also from Ilocos Norte. The day after Father Guerrero was ordained, Father Sabog passed away.
In 1975, 26 years after the arrival of Father Calip, Father Gervacio came from the Diocese of Laoag in Ilocos Norte to work among Hawaii’s Filipinos. He visited 44 parishes in four years. He was incardinated into the Diocese of Honolulu in June 1977, becoming the first Filipino immigrant priest to join the ranks of this particular church. He is now pastor emeritus at Our Lady of the Mount in Kalihi where he served for 10 years after retiring from the U.S. Navy chaplaincy.
In the late 1980s, the Diocesan Office for Filipino Ministries was created to serve the pastoral needs of Philippine immigrants. The diocesan chancellor, Maryknoll Sister Grace Dorothy Lim, was appointed director. Priests from all over the Philippines were invited to serve in Hawaii. It was again the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia, through then-Archbishop (later Cardinal) Orlando B. Quevedo, that first responded, sending Father Rudy Ferrer in 1990. The Filipino priests grew in number over the next two decades and now constitute almost half of the active priests in the diocese.
Map: Sanglahi86
My own challenges
Doing my priestly ministry in Hawaii had its own challenges, the first of which was the way I speak. Early on, when I was at Sts. Peter and Paul, there were some concerns that a few people could not understand me. I was getting mixed signals, however. Some people appreciated my homilies! I reasoned there were three possible reasons a person could not be understood: the accent of the speaker, the medium (the church’s audio system) or the condition of the listener, especially those with hearing issues.
I started to learn English as a toddler when my mother introduced me to the world: the dog, the cat, the moon, sun, stars, etc. And the medium of instruction in the Philippines is English, although we are not taught to speak the American way. One day, the vicar for clergy called to tell me that Bishop Larry Silva received a report from a local priest who attended my Mass that he could not understand me.
A speech therapist was sent to evaluate me and perhaps improve the way I speak. She was a Filipino woman whom I discovered was raised by grandparents who were Ilocanos from my home province. And as is typical for locals born of Filipino ancestry, she could perfectly understand Ilocano, my mother tongue, but could not speak it. I suggested that she attend my Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul without letting me know she is there. After the Mass she approached me and said: “Father, there seems to be no problem!” This is now “water under the bridge” and I’m glad I survived.
Another challenge was my hospice ministry. It was a bit of a shock when Bishop Silva called me in early June 2017 to tell me I would be transferred to the St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii to work as a hospice chaplain. I had no experience with hospice ministry; I had to learn the ropes. The manager of the Spiritual Care Department, Patty Martin, understood my predicament and gave me two months to familiarize myself with the work. I may not have been fully successful but I believe I was good enough. It was a chance to meet people, relatives whom I had not seen in a long time, former students working in the care facilities and parishioners whom I served in the different parishes in my home diocese.
My colleagues at St. Francis said that I knew every Filipino in Hawaii! This may be an overstatement, but when a Filipino, especially an Ilocano, comes on board hospice ministry, very often there are connections discovered. There were many firsts in my life as a priest when I worked with hospice. It was my first time working with a team — a physician, nurses and social workers called an inter-disciplinary group. And since the spiritual care at St. Francis is ecumenical, it was also my first time working closely with other religious denominations, which went very well.
Filling sugar sacks, early 1900s Hawaii. Photo: CC
Grandpa lore
Last year, when I started to grapple with the idea of going back to my home diocese to spend my twilight years in active ministry, I recalled the family lore I heard during my childhood years in the 1960s. My paternal grandfather had joined the bandwagon of sakadas, sugarcane plantation workers who came to Hawaii from the Philippines. He arrived in the early 1920s. I don’t know why, but he came back home after a couple of years. In 1925, he returned to Hawaii to join his brother, the youngest of the siblings, at the behest of their mother. My grandpa was in Waialua and his brother was in Aiea. Grandpa soon learned that his brother had assaulted a field luna (foreman) who was cruel to the laborers. My grandpa scolded his brother — “You put us to shame!” — and returned to the Philippines.
After my granduncle was freed from detention, he went to the Big Island where he lived in Pauilo for the next 40 years. When I was a kid, my father, the prankster in the family, would joke that my grandfather returned home because he was afraid of being drafted into the army. (I don’t believe that because the draft came with the onset of World War II.) My grandpa always retorted, “You fool, you should thank me that I came home. If not you would not have been born.” My father was born three years after grandpa came home! Am I now following the footsteps of my grandfather? Perhaps, in totally different circumstances.
I leave Hawaii with many fond memories. I will not forget the very fatherly care of Bishop Silva. Since we first met in Wahiawa two days after I arrived, he has never forgotten my name. He calls each one of his priests by his first name! The first thing he asks is, “How are you?” or “How are things going?” Another memorable part for me is experiencing the priestly brotherhood whenever we rub elbows, especially during the annual priest convocations, which I believe every priest in the Honolulu diocese looks forward to.
Friendships were built and strengthened in my five years in Hawaii. I fondly remember the late Gordon Lau, a parishioner of Sts. Peter and Paul. He was the ever-patient volunteer, my dining-out buddy, and my driver, especially for sick calls. A certain bond of friendship also developed in hospice ministry, especially with the families of the patients. Friendships also developed with the other chaplains, including those of other Christian denominations.
Friendships were also rekindled with my former students at the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan, the regional major seminary in Northern Philippines, in the likes of Father Raymond Ellorin, Father Pascual Abaya and Father Peter Dumag, who were among the first group that I taught church history. Father Edgar Brillantes and Father Mario Raquepo were my contemporaries in the theologate.
Bishop Larry, in his thank you letter to me affirmed that my ministry in Hawaii “touched many lives with the Gospel of Jesus.” Indeed this is at the core of the ministry of every priest, wherever he ministers. Hawaii has now become a chapter in my personal and priestly life. It has been a wonderful five years of ministry singing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.
