FATHER CHRISTOPHER PATRICK KEAHI | 1937-2021

Sacred Hearts priest’s years of service were vigorous, varied

By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald

Father Christopher Patrick Keahi, whose long, grateful life as a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts was vigorous and varied, died in Honolulu on Oct. 17 at age 84. He was a religious for 62 years and a priest for 56 years.

His death was a “complete surprise,” said Sacred Hearts Father Clyde Guerreiro, pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Kaimuki where Father Keahi resided.

Father Keahi had celebrated the Saturday vigil Mass the night before at Mary, Star of the Sea Church in Waialae-Kahala, Father Guerreiro said.

You can watch the video of Father Keahi’s last Mass above.

When the pastor woke up at 4 a.m. the next day, paramedics were already attending to the priest. Father Keahi was declared dead at Straub Medical Center at 6:30 a.m. Sacred Hearts Brother John Sawchenko was at his side.

Funeral services are pending.

According to Father Guerreiro, Father Keahi had been in “fine health.”

For a man in his mid-80s, “he had energy galore,” he said. “He was running around like a 26-year-old priest, saying Masses here and there. He was very active.”

“He connected well with the local people,” Father Guerreiro said, maintaining the friendships he had created at his many assignments over the years.

He was always one to express his gratitude, writing thank you notes for favors as simple as a “beef stew meal,” he said. Likewise, he was very generous, “especially to those whom he perceived to be the underdog.”

“He was a great guy,” he said. “We are going to miss him.”

Father Guerreiro first knew Father Keahi as a high school seminary teacher at Sacred Hearts Seminary in Hauula in the mid-1960s. The priest, then newly ordained, taught salvation history and typing.

“He was superb at it,” Father Guerreiro recalled. “We (seminarians) all looked up to him with deep admiration.”

Father Keahi’s parish assignments took him to three islands. He was pastor of St. Joseph, Makawao, Maui; St. Augustine, Waikiki; Maria Lanakila, Lahaina, Maui; Holy Cross, Kalaheo, Kauai; Blessed Sacrament, Honolulu; and St. Michael, Waialua. He was also associate pastor at Holy Trinity, Kuliouou; and St. Joseph, Waipahu.

His non-parish jobs included serving as both vice provincial and provincial superior of the Sacred Hearts Fathers and Brothers in Hawaii. He was the last provincial of the Hawaii province before it merged with the mainland province to create the U.S. province.

Besides being a seminary professor, he was also provincial secretary, vocations director, superior of St. Patrick Monastery, and police chaplain for both the Honolulu and Maui Police Departments.

In retirement he assisted as chaplain of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts and as a military contract priest for the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe.

Just last month he was again named local superior of St. Patrick Monastery.

Sacred Hearts Academy president Scott Schroeder, in a Oct. 18 message to the school community, remembered how “extraordinarily dedicated” Father Keahi was to the academy and its students.

When the priest served on the school’s board of directors, he would make the 67-mile round trip from his parish in Waialua to attend meetings in Kaimuki, Schroeder said.

After he retired, he celebrated Mass often at the academy and presided over the blessing of the new lower school playground among other events.

“Father Chris brought a joyful and wise presence to all he did, and we will miss him greatly,” Schroeder said.

Father Keahi had a rough childhood.

Born in Honolulu on March 29, 1937, he was 3 when his parents divorced. He and his brother and sister were shuffled off to different foster homes.

“No one wanted to take all three of us together,” he said in an interview last year with the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “So we grew up more like cousins until our adult lives.”

Father Keahi lived with seven foster families, moving every two years.

“All that movement and adjustment hardened me,” he said.

“I believe God was preparing me for something. His graces have been all I needed,” Father Keahi said.

A product of public schools, his life changed after a chance meeting with a Sacred Hearts priest who taught a monthly optional class at Kaimuki High School that the student signed up for because there were “no studies involved.”

Father Brendan Furtado suggested that he was being “called to the priesthood.”

Father Keahi initially rejected the idea as ridiculous.

“But God works through mysterious ways,” he said. “God has given me the privilege of working in his name.”

Father Keahi was professed into the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in 1957 and ordained in Honolulu by Bishop James J. Sweeney on June 12, 1965.

“I believe God’s graces kept me from all dangers and harms and kept me on the straight and narrow way,” Father Keahi said. “I am so happy, so glad that when anyone calls upon me for help, I never refuse.”

“God has given me the energy by which I can continue to do his work on earth,” he said. “He has allowed me the privilege of continuing my ministry for his sake.”

At the end of the interview, Father Keahi offered fresh advice gleaned from his 80-plus years of living. “During this time of pandemic, I ask you to place your trust in God. God will help you, I know that. Have at least faith that all things will go better, and they will. Every day is a new day. Look forward to a better tomorrow.”

To read tributes left by Facebook users on the Hawaii Catholic Herald page, click on the image below.