By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona
Hawaii Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona was elected June 23 by his religious community as the superior of the United States Province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, overseeing some 90 priests, brothers and seminarians in seven locations in four countries.
It is normally a full-time job. But a lack of available priests in his congregation has him splitting the time spent on new leadership duties with his ongoing pastorship of St. Augustine Parish in Waikiki.
“I put on pastor’s hat in the morning,” he said, “and in the afternoon I put on my provincial’s hat.”
Needless to say, vocations are on top of the new provincial’s agenda.
“The good news is that we hope to ordain up to six priests in the next couple of years,” he said.
“The not-so-good news is that there are not too many priests left of my generation,” he said.
Elected vicar provincial, or second in charge, was Sacred Hearts Father Robert Charlton of Texas.
The balloting also selected three councilors, or advisors, for Father Akiona’s leadership team.
The first councilor is Sacred Hearts Father Stephen Banjare of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The second councilor is Father Edward Popish of St. Patrick Parish, Honolulu. And the third councilor is Father Richard Danyluk, the congregation’s novice master, in Hemet, California.
The U.S. province has more than 90 priests, brothers and seminarians in seven places, two of which are big enough to be designated as “regions” — 15 men in Hawaii, 16 men in Massachusetts, four in Texas, 15 in California in its West Coast region, 17 seminarians in Fiji, one priest in its Tongan mission and about 20 in its region of India.
The job requires traveling. Lots of it, usually, when not hampered by a pandemic. He has already been to Texas and last week left for California for what will probably be his last trip this calendar year. Foreign stops are currently out of the question because of COVID-19.
Increasing the number of vocations is a priority for the new provincial. “We are fine tuning our program,” he said. Though his province is a mix of U.S. and foreign locations, with future priests studying in Fiji, it is primarily American, he said.
So while foreign vocations have been a blessing, these men will have to absorb U.S. church culture, he said.
Father Akiona hopes to beef up the congregation’s 50-year-old ministry in its two Texas parishes on the Mexican-U.S. border in the Diocese of Brownsville, where the priests work with migrants and asylum seekers. Toward that purpose, he said, he wants his men to learn Spanish.
Father Akiona’s term is three years. He also hopes to create within his congregation a spirit of transparency and dialogue on such topics as finances and sex abuse, things the members “need to know,” he said.
“I hope to build my relationship with them, not as a superior, but as a brother in community,” he said.
The future may also hold a closer working relationship with the Sacred Hearts Province of the Philippines and Japan, he said.
The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary is a worldwide order of both men and women. In addition to provinces in the United States and Asia, the men also have them in Europe and Latin America.
Father Akiona, who is from Molokai, noted that he is one of three persons from that small island to be elected to a top leadership post in their communities. The others are Trappist Father Harold Meyer, formerly of the Sacred Hearts Congregation, who was provincial of the Hawaii Sacred Hearts province in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Sister Marion Kikukawa, who several years ago was named minister general of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.
“Impressive for a small island like Molokai,” Father Akiona said.
CONGREGATION OF THE SACRED HEARTS, UNITED STATES PROVINCE
HISTORY
The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SS.CC.) is an international community of priests, brothers and sisters founded in France in 1800, on Christmas Eve, by Father Marie-Joseph Coudrin and Mother Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie. Together, they visualized a community that would go out into the foreign missions to spread the message of God’s unconditional love as manifested through the hearts of Jesus and Mary.
In 1827 the young congregation sent teams of missionaries to several Pacific islands to evangelize new faithful. Nowhere in the Pacific did it inspire its people more than in the Kingdom of Hawaii. It established what is now the Diocese of Honolulu and built the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, the oldest Catholic cathedral in continuous use in the United States. From 1833 to 1940, Hawaii’s first six bishops were members of the congregation.
Bishop William Stang, the first bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, first met the congregation when he was a student at the Catholic University of Louvain. As head of a multi-lingual diocese facing a shortage of priests, he invited the congregation to work in his diocese. The congregation sent three priests in 1905.
In 1946, the Hawaii mission became the Province of Hawaii. In 1947, the growing Massachusetts community became the East Coast Province.
Over the years, the congregation established missions in California, South Texas, Ireland, England, Japan, the Bahamas, India, Tonga and Fiji. Today, the congregation is in 33 countries.
In November 2011, the Hawaii and East Coast Provinces joined to create the United States Province.
TODAY
Members: more than 90
Locations: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Texas, California, India, Fiji, Tonga, Rome
Ages: 24 to 92.
Hawaii parishes: St. Patrick, Kaimuki; St. Augustine, Waikiki; St. Ann, Kaneohe; Our Lady of Good Counsel, Pearl City; St. Damien, Molokai; and St. Francis, Kalaupapa.
Massachusetts parishes: St. Joseph, Fairhaven; St. Mary, Fairhaven; Our Lady of the Assumption, New Bedford.
Rio Grande Valley, Texas parishes: Sacred Heart, Edinburg; Queen of Peace, Harlingen
California parish: Holy Name of Mary, San Dimas
Schools served: St. Patrick, Honolulu; St. Joseph School, Fairhaven; Damien High School, La Verne, California
Other ministries: in India, Damien Social Development Institute for Hansen’s disease patients and their families; in Texas, shelter and pastoral care for the migrant population along the border; in Fiji, brothers in formation collect food for more than 100 families in outlying villages affected by COVID-19.
Compiled by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
