The diocese through the decades
On Sept. 10, 1941, Hawaii’s Catholic church, a missionary outpost for 114 years, was elevated to the status of “diocese” — the Diocese of Honolulu. It was, for island Catholics, an honor perhaps akin to the territory of Hawaii becoming a state of the union. Pope Pius XII appointed Bishop James J. Sweeney of San Francisco as the first diocesan bishop. The (Hawaii) Catholic Herald at the time called the event “a dramatic sequel to the founding of the tiny pioneering mission … started in the Sandwich Isles in 1827. From those first seeds … has grown a church area in the mid-Pacific that today consists of 112 parish churches, 17 parochial schools attended by 8,993 Catholic children, a clergy of 82, 78 brothers, 250 sisters, and a Catholic laity of 120,000 souls.”
1940s and 50s
Born on the eve of war — just a few months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor — the fledging diocese grew with leaps and bounds once the boys came marching home. New churches and schools were popping up two, three, four at a time, prompting the Honolulu Star-Bulletin to call Bishop Sweeney “the building bishop of Honolulu.”
A seminary was established and Catholic Charities actively served the orphan and the poor. The 1940s and ’50s were decades of the enthusiastic lay piety and devotion which regularly drew tens of thousands of Catholics together for public rallies and crusades.
By 1960, the new pope, John XXIII, had flung open the windows of change in the Second Vatican Council, Hawaii was a state, and there was a young Catholic in the White House.
1960s
As in the rest of society, the 1960s marked dramatic changes for the church in Hawaii. The Vatican Council had launched the church into an invigorating and often painful renewal. Americans struggled between hope and cynicism as they heralded the Peace Corps and the civil rights movement in the midst of political assassinations, the cold war and Vietnam.
New churches continued to be built, but the physical growth of the island church slowed down by the end of the 1960s. Bishop Sweeney died in 1968, and his auxiliary, Bishop John J. Scanlan, became the diocese’s second bishop.
1970s
The cultural upheaval of the 1960s set the stage for the abortion controversy of the 1970s, with Bishop Scanlan’s strong and insistent plea that society protect the lives of its unborn. The diocese’s pro-life advocacy was one of the markers of this decade in which social justice gained a sturdy foothold in the life of the church.
Parishes opened its doors to Vietnam refugees, the poor were being served through the Campaign for Human Development, and the Mary Jane Center was established for unwed mothers.
In the 1970s, the church in Hawaii also celebrated 25 years as a diocese and 150 years as an island family of faith.
1980s
The church in Hawaii entered the 1980s with a new Polish pope with a zeal for spreading the Gospel message by jet. In 1982, former seminary teacher and island pastor, Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario, was named diocesan bishop following Bishop Scanlan’s retirement.
Under the three-cornered call of “outreach, unity and renewal,” Bishop Ferrario challenged his people to be all that they could be as church. He oversaw a bolder commitment to social ministries, a flourishing of the liturgical arts, and a resurgence of renewal in island parish communities.
Proceeding with confidence and vigor, the diocese, led by the bishop, continues to reach out to the spiritually and physically needy, leading them home to our deep-rooted but ever-renewed island family of faith.
1990s
The 1990s began as the diocese celebrated its Golden Jubilee. Bishop Ferrario retired in 1993 because of health reasons and was succeeded by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, a Philadelphia native and auxiliary Bishop of Scranton.
Bishop DiLorenzo introduced a diocese-wide parish renewal and review program called the “Welcoming Parish.” He increased and strengthened the diocese’s ministries to the Filipinos, Vietnamese, Samoans, Hispanics, Koreans and Chinese and invited priests from Philippine dioceses to serve in our parishes.
The 1990s saw the diocese, with its newly established Hawaii Catholic Conference, join a successful effort to block the legalization of same-sex marriage in Hawaii, a move that would be overturned nationally two decades later.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II beatified Blessed Damien.
The decade saw two new Oahu parishes and the creation of the Office for Social Ministry on the Big Island, and Ministry for Persons with Disabilities.
2000s
In June 2000 Bishop DiLorenzo convened the diocese’s second synod, the first in more than 40 years, in order to prepare the church in Hawaii for the 21st century. Called Synod 2000, the three-day event was the largest diocese-wide event in recent memory, bringing together hundreds of parish delegates and volunteers, plus 60 youth delegates, and dozens of representatives from religious orders, schools, ethnic groups and lay organizations.
The century’s first decade saw the explosion of the national priest sex-abuse scandal. Hawaii has had it share of cases, some more visible than others, but fortunately avoided the more notorious and costly ones.
In 2004, after nearly 11 years in Hawaii, Bishop DiLorenzo was installed as the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia.
Molokai’s Mother Marianne Cope was beatified in 2005.
Bishop Larry Silva, the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Honolulu, was ordained and installed on July 21, 2005. He is the first bishop of Honolulu born in Hawaii, though he grew up in Oakland, Calif. He was a priest of the Oakland diocese for 30 years before he was picked to lead the church in Hawaii.
The decade closed with the canonization of Blessed Damien in 2009.
2010s
The centerpiece of Bishop Silva’s new administration was his “Diocesan Road Map for Pastoral, Program and Facility Needs 2008-2013.” He listed six main goals: leadership development, youth and young adult programs, faith formation, homelessness, repair and maintenance of church and school facilities, new parishes and facilities, and management of land assets.
To finance these goals, the bishop initiated an ambitious $30 million capital campaign from 2008 to 2013, the first such major campaign in 40 years.
One of Bishop Silva’s passions is the saintly legacy the diocese inherited in the lives of St. Damien and St. Marianne who both sacrificed their lives in different ways for the displaced Hawaiians in Kalaupapa. Two of the bishop’s own relatives were sent to Kalaupapa because they had Hansen’s disease.
Blessed Marianne was canonized in 2012.
In 2016 the diocese renewed the “road map” with a new pastoral plan, “Stewards of the Gospel,” which will be in force until the close of the decade.
