By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
“Monuments, Marvels, and Miracles: A Traveler’s Guide to Catholic America” by Marion Amberg
If you’d like to be inspired to visit Catholic landmarks on your next mainland trip, “Monuments, Marvels and Miracles: A Traveler’s Guide to Catholic America” (Our Sunday Visitor) is a fact-filled and well-organized book to browse and bring along in the car.
The guidebook focuses exclusively on Catholic landmarks. Churches, basilicas, cathedrals, abbeys, museums, shrines and historic sites are vividly summarized state by state under regional sections: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Mountain West, Southwest and Pacific West. Each state chapter opens with a map marking the highlighted landmarks.
Hawaii’s chapter is in the Pacific West section and closes out the book. Its highlights include the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace on Oahu, the “Coral Miracle Church” of St. Gabriel Mission in Keanae on Maui, Holy Ghost Mission in Kula on Maui, St. Benedict “the Painted Church” in Captain Cook on Hawaii island, St. Peter by the Sea in Kailua-Kona on Hawaii island, Kalaupapa National Historic Park, and St. Joseph Church and Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Church on topside Molokai.
Check out Vermont’s chapter for information on the painted church with a connection to Kalaupapa’s Brother Joseph Dutton. And you’ll also be intrigued by the many other Catholic spots across America you might want to stop by the next time you’re on the mainland.
“Between the Sea and Sky: The Saga of My Portuguese American Family in Upcountry Maui, 1881-1941” by Donna M. Binkiewicz
Maui-born, Cal State Long Beach professor Donna M. Binkiewicz has written a history of Portuguese immigrants to Maui as seen through the partly fictionalized story of three generations of her ancestors, “Between the Sea and Sky: The Saga of My Portuguese American Family in Upcountry Maui.”
Using historic records, interviews and her imagination, Binkiewicz fleshes out what it was like to live in upcountry Maui between the initial influx of immigrants from Portugal to Hawaii in the 1880s through the beginning of World War II.
While the book’s focus is more on telling the history of Portuguese immigrants to Hawaii — and specifically to Maui — the local Catholic church is often intertwined with that narrative. Those that came to Hawaii from the Azores and Madeira were almost all Catholic, and the local church community they formed helped them feel more at home.
Binkiewicz mentions that when traveling to Hawaii, the Portuguese passengers made sure to have a Catholic prayer service although they didn’t have a priest to say Mass or give Communion. As soon as they docked, couples that formed on the sea voyage went first thing to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu to be married.
Once in Hawaii, Sundays were sacred and also the only day off each week for plantation workers. The day revolved around Mass and keeping the Sabbath a day of rest. Binkiewicz describes the Portuguese immigrants as hard workers with big families who planned for their lives after plantation work, whether that was on their own homestead farms, running their own business or some other means.
Some of the Sacred Hearts missionary priests to Hawaii in the 1880s through the early 1900s are mentioned by name in “Between the Sea and Sky.” Father James Beissel gets particular mention as he arrived in Makawao, Maui, around the same time as many of the first Portuguese workers arrived. The da Costa and De Coite families at the center of most of the book were among those families who regularly cooked for the parish priest.
The book has a handful of family photographs and historic images scattered throughout its 223 pages and includes several Portuguese family recipes including Portuguese bean soup, stuffed figs and ham, pineapple candy and, of course, malassadas.
Those of Portuguese descent in Hawaii may be particularly intrigued by this book and inspired to do some research on their own family history.
