2020 in review

A look back at the events and images from the very unusual year in the Diocese of Honolulu

Compiled by Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald

Here is a month-by-month review of the Catholic news in Hawaii in 2020 as reported in the Hawaii Catholic Herald.

January

• Accompanied by vicar general Msgr. Gary Secor, Bishop Larry Silva made his required customary “ad limina” visit to the Vatican with 33 other bishops from California and Nevada. The bishops met with Pope Francis for a two-and-a-half-hour meeting Jan. 27. Bishop Silva presented the pope with a wrapped gift of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from Hawaii’s Carmelite nuns. The Hawaii bishop and monsignor were in Italy Jan. 19 to Feb. 2 where they also visited several basilicas, Vatican offices and historic sites.
• On Jan. 31, Deacon Modesto Cordero, director of the Office of Worship, issues a memorandum to all clergy and parishes with advice on health precautions to consider taking at Mass ahead of cold and flu season and news of the COVID-19 virus starting to spread outside of China.

February

• The Hawaii young adult Catholic organization EPIC Ministry launches its Maui chapter on Feb. 17 with a gathering of about 30 people. The Maui EPIC chapter includes seven Maui parishes and Lanai’s parish, all of which committed to participating in and supporting the ministry.

March

• The Damien and Marianne of Molokai Education Center is finished on the outside while waiting for more funding to complete its interior and exhibits. The center is in the heart of Waikiki on St. Augustine Parish property.
• Bishop Silva cancels public liturgies on March 17 for two weeks, prompted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation that gatherings of 50 or more be canceled and the advice of local health and government officials due to the coronavirus. He then extends that ban until April 30 as the government pressed stricter “stay at home” orders.
• Public Mass celebrations such as Confirmations, parish anniversaries, pastor installations and other planned liturgies with the bishop are put on hold.
• St. Michael School in Waialua on the North Shore of Oahu begins recruiting more students for its planned online high school, to launch in fall 2020.
• Diocese of Honolulu seminarians fly back to Hawaii from St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California, after COVID-19 leads the school to switch to distance learning for the remainder of the academic year. Two diocesan seminarians headed back to the Big Island, but the remaining seminarians stay at St. Stephen Diocesan Center to finish up their coursework for the school year.

April

• The normal “Bagels with Bishop” events for Catholic high school seniors went virtual after COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.
• The Kupuna Needs Project, run by Catholic volunteers, starts an island-wide initiative to provide food and needed provisions to kupuna and other vulnerable people during the pandemic.
• Among other efforts, HOPE Services Hawaii coordinates a place for homeless elderly and medically at-risk homeless to stay during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The coronavirus leads Bishop Silva to hold the Easter Vigil and all Holy Week services in private, with a small number of clergy and lay ministers in attendance. The bishop’s Masses and those at many parishes throughout Hawaii are livestreamed or posted online. Bishop Silva’s Easter Sunday Mass is prerecorded and aired on network TV.
• April 24 marks the end of an extended six-year window for Hawaii victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against their alleged perpetrators and their employers, and with this deadline, came a substantial number of new lawsuits. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, along with Punahou School and Kamehameha Schools, are among several organizations named in multiple filings for alleged incidents, most dating back to the 1960s through the 1980s.
• The Hawaii Catholic Schools department announces that parochial schools will remain on distance learning for the rest of the school year after having been teaching remotely since mid-March.

May

• The Future of the University of Hawaii-Manoa Newman Center is uncertain after the posted sale of the closed St. Francis School property on which the Newman Center sits.
• Hawaii pastors and administrators report that the reopening of Hawaii’s Catholic churches for Mass May 30-31 went smoothly. Mass-goers are required to wear face masks and maintain social distancing. Pews and other common areas must be sanitized after each liturgy. Public Masses in the Diocese of Honolulu had been halted since March due to the pandemic.
• Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Ewa Beach and St. John the Baptist in Kalihi both close at the end of the 2019-2020 school year due to financial strain put on the schools by the COVID-19 pandemic. St. John the Baptist was 60 years old and Our Lady of Perpetual Help 53 years old.
• Like most Hawaii and U.S. schools, Hawaii Catholic schools have to adjust graduation ceremony plans due to the pandemic, with drive-by and drive-in, streamed and other socially distanced graduation activities taking the place of traditional celebrations.

June

• The only Catholic school on Hawaii Island, St. Joseph School in Hilo, announces it won’t close after all, following several weeks of intense fundraising and promotion for the Catholic pre-K through 12th grade, which has faced a significant deficit in recent years which COVID-19 worsened. The school, however, is still in need of ongoing financial support.
• After a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ese’ese “Ace” Tui is ordained a transitional deacon for the Diocese of Honolulu on June 13 during a paired down Mass at his home parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ewa Beach.
• Both a new and a future site of Catholic Charities Hawaii affordable apartment buildings are blessed on Maui on June 25: the completed Kahului Lani 1 and the just-started Kahului Lani 2.
• The departure of Christian Brother Brian Walsh, president of Damien Memorial School for 18 months, is announced in a June 25 letter to the school community. His replacement is Kyle Atabay, the current principal. Previous president and CEO Wes Porter was let go in January 2019 after almost three years in the job.

July

• The big brother of pastoral councils, the Diocesan Pastoral Council, releases an eight-page guide to steer parish pastoral councils in the right direction. The “Discussion Questions for Parish Pastoral Councils” booklet has about 40 questions in it for pastoral councils to ask themselves.
• Thirty-five years after its founding in Hawaii, the Benedictine Monastery in Waialua, Oahu, elects island-born Sister Celeste “CC” Cabral as prioress July 9.

August

• For the third time since the coronavirus epidemic hit, Bishop Silva gives Hawaii Catholics an “extension of dispensation from Sunday Mass obligation,” this time through Oct. 31.
• Wildfires in Oregon this August and September cause extensive damage and air quality issues in the state and surrounding areas, but they spare any damage at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary in the Willamette Valley. Diocese of Honolulu seminarians who do not already have an undergraduate degree attend Mount Angel Seminary.
• After some confusion, Hawaii Catholic Schools remain open during the second Oahu COVID-19 shutdown. Most Hawaii Catholic schools opened to in-person learning in July and August after having switched to remote learning in the spring due to the coronavirus.
• Our Lady of the Mount Parish in Honolulu’s Kalihi Valley celebrates 150 years on Aug. 16.
• Upset by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion that St. Damien was a white supremacist colonizer, two of the saint’s Belgian relatives, representing his extended family, write her an open letter Aug. 20 denouncing her words.

September

• Chris Malano of Oahu makes his “first promise” as a Paulist on Sept. 4 at the Paulist House of Mission and Formation at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Washington, D.C.
• Deacon Gerald (Gary) E. and Valerie Y. Streff are named co-directors of the Respect for Life Ministry in the Diocese of Honolulu on Sept. 8 taking over from Paulette Vernay who retired in mid-July.
• On Sept. 8, Bishop Larry Silva incardinates into the Diocese of Honolulu Father Ornoldo Cherrez who is originally a priest of the Apostolic Vicariate of Galapagos.
• The committal of one’s remains may once again return to the parish thanks to the passage of a bill signed into law Sept. 15 by Gov. David Ige, which allows religious institutions in Hawaii to build and maintain on their property columbaria, structures such as a wall, room or building for the keeping of cremated remains.
• HOPE Services (HOPE standing for Homeless Outreach, Prevention, Education) celebrates 10 years of social outreach on the Big Island.
• Ongoing renovations at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace include finishing repair and marbelizing of the coral pillars in the historic church.

October

• Marianist Brother Allen Agpaoa Pacquing, of Honolulu, made his final profession of vows as a member of the U.S Province of the Society of Mary, or Marianists, Oct. 3, in Guadalupe Chapel at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.
• In an Oct. 13 letter, Bishop Silva extends the dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation from Nov. 1 until the end of 2020.
• Couples for Christ-Maui celebrates its first anniversary on Oct. 24 with four couples coming together online to mark the occasion.
• The Oct. 24 Diocesan Youth Day, with the theme “ARISE,” takes place entirely online, with live and prerecorded segments.

November

• A new special collection for Hawaii’s retired priests takes place Nov. 7 and 8.
• “Star Light, Star Bright,” the annual Christmas event that unite women inmates on Oahu with their families, and its summer program, “Sun Light, Sun Bright,” are canceled this year due to COVID-19. A donation fund and gifts to help the families of the women inmates takes its place.
• Llewellyn Young is named superintendent of Hawaii Catholic Schools Nov. 12. He had been filling in since July for his predecessor, Michael Rockers, who retired at the end of the last school year.
• The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is tented for termites for the first time in 26 years.

December

• Bishop Silva extends Mass dispensation through Feb. 16, the day before Ash Wednesday, while urging Catholics to go to Mass if they are able to do so safely.

Rest in Peace

We remember in prayer the priests, religious and lay people in our church ohana who died in the year past. Here is a list of faithful departed whose obituaries appeared in the Hawaii Catholic Herald in 2020.

• La Salette Father Antonio “Tony” Abuan
• La Salette Father Rene “Biz” Bisaillon
• Maryknoll Sister Anne Marie Callahan
• Sacred Hearts Father Thomas Young Bok Choo
• Sacred Hearts Sister Juliana Costa Brum
• Sacred Hearts Father Clarence Guerreiro
• Deacon Ernest “Ernie” D. Libarios Sr.
• Pi‘olani Motta, Kalaupapa advocate
• Robert Pearson, pro-life advocate
• Father Jack Ryan
• John “Jack” F. Sullivan Jr., prison ministry leader
• Jesuit Father David O. Travers