Facing the future together
By Lisa Dahm
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Dona Clamucha considers herself blessed. Her father, Daniel Pires, was the first parishioner inurned in St. Ann Church’s columbarium after it was blessed in 2022.
Now, Clamucha — the Kaneohe parish’s receptionist — often takes time during her lunch breaks to visit the engraved niche containing his ashes and pray on the bench in front of the columbarium, which is mounted along an exterior side wall.
It’s something she would not have been able to do if he were buried in a cemetery when he passed away several years ago.
“He was my best friend, and it is nice that I can go to his niche and cry and talk story with him,” Clamucha said. “Before my dad even passed, he always said he wanted to go in there. We were very active with the parish, and it was an honor and a privilege.”
For the past five years, Hawaii Catholic Cemeteries, a ministry of the Diocese of Honolulu, has been working to bring columbaria to parishes in the diocese through its Cremation Inurnment Program.
A columbarium is a structure that houses a series of niches where the cremated remains of loved ones can be laid to rest. Each niche can hold up to two urns containing the remains of two people with both names engraved on the outside.
(The Catholic Church has permitted cremation since 1963, though the remains must not be separated or scattered.)
Multiple options
Duane Pavao, director of Hawaii Catholic Cemeteries, said one of the reasons that Catholics are choosing cremation is the lower cost of inurnment in a niche versus interment in a casket. It is also a way to give back to the parish, since a portion of the sales returns to the parish.
And he said that in pre-arranging your own cemetery plans, you assist your family by eliminating their financial and emotional burden during a stressful time.
“Our main goal is to work with the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead,” Pavao said.
Hawaii Catholic Cemeteries is part of the nationwide Catholic Funeral and Cemetery Services company, based in Oakland, California. The groundwork for the Diocese of Honolulu’s program was laid with the creation of a task force six years ago, which examined legal and regulatory issues on each island regarding burial and final resting places.
The program now offers families multiple options to place the cremated remains of their loved one in a columbarium at their home parish or another Catholic church.
On Oahu, in addition to St. Ann, columbaria have been installed at Resurrection of
the Lord in Waipio Gentry, St. John Apostle and Evangelist in Mililani, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pearl City and St. Michael in Waialua (Mary, Star of the Sea in Waialae-Kahala will bless its columbarium this month).
On Maui, columbaria can be found at St. Theresa in Kihei and St. Anthony of Padua in Wailuku; and on Kauai, Immaculate Conception in Lihue is home to a columbarium.
Each columbarium has a unique design and is built off-site, then transported to the local church. The columbarium is accompanied by a memorial where names of parishioners who were buried or interred elsewhere can be engraved for remembrance.
Father Anthony Rapozo, pastor of St. John Apostle and Evangelist and a member of the task force, said his parish installed its columbarium this past January and is already planning a second 60-niche section, as the first spaces have been purchased.
“We wanted to make sure there were other opportunities (for burial) for parishioners,” Father Rapozo said.
Providing space for all
The columbarium at St. Anthony of Padua in Wailuku is located in the parish’s Resurrection Garden, where plans and space have been made to accommodate hundreds of urns. The current columbarium, blessed in August 2024, holds 80 niches; only 20 have not been claimed.
Tanya Barbero, parish community representative for the Cremation Inurnment Program, is the local point of contact on Maui.
“The Resurrection Garden at St. Anthony has truly been planned out,” Barbero said. “When you think about the fact that most of the people who would want to be laid to rest here have come to rest at the parish and refresh when they were alive, why not have their final resting place be the place where we found solace, faith and community? The ground is sacred.”
Barbero and her husband have already purchased their niche and will be inurned together in what she calls “a community that will always be there.”
Blessed Sacrament Father Frankie de los Reyes, pastor of Mary, Star of the Sea, said his parish’s columbarium, which will be blessed later this month, is another important ministry that the parish can offer to its community.
More than 30 parishioners have already purchased niches in the columbarium for themselves and their family members.
He said the columbarium reminds parishioners and visitors of the significance of the people buried there, which is why it is located on their campus.
“Our baptism made us a big family of God. Whether we are living or are already dead, we are one family,” Father de los Reyes said.
“The dignity of each person has to be respected, and so when we have a concrete project like this columbarium, (it) offers us an opportunity and reminds us how they lived their lives. As we know, the good works they have done will follow us to the gate of heaven.”
For more information, visit Hawaii Catholic Cemeteries’ website at hawaiicatholiccemeteries.org.
Above: Dona Clamucha, receptionist for St. Ann Church in Kaneohe, regularly visits the parish’s columbarium where her father, Daniel Pires, was inurned after he died in 2022. (Lisa Dahm / Hawaii Catholic Herald)