By Darlene J.M. Dela Cruz
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The bombing of Pearl Harbor. Hawaii’s statehood. The canonization of two saints.
Countless baptisms, first Communions, weddings, funerals, ordinations, daily and Sunday Masses.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu has been through quite a bit in seven-and-a-half decades. Island Catholics over the years have been blessed with a unique community of faith that is rich in history, colored by diverse cultural traditions and woven together in God’s grace with the spirit of aloha.
Sept. 10 marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Honolulu. To commemorate the occasion, Bishop Larry Silva will celebrate a special liturgy at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace on that date at 10 a.m.
The public is invited to a joyful 75th anniversary Mass highlighted by multiethnic prayers, symbols of the eight Hawaiian Islands and tributes to the four diocesan bishops who preceded the Mass’ celebrant. A simple reception with food and fellowship will be held after the Sept. 10 liturgy.
The following seven-page special section features articles and artwork in honor of the diocese’s 75th birthday.
Bishop Silva shares his reflections on the anniversary, and we take a look back at the other diocesan bishops who came before him. Included is a reprint of the original (Hawaii) Catholic Herald story of the diocese’s establishment, and the text of the address by founding Bishop James J. Sweeney. A timeline notes highlights by decade of the past three-quarters of a century. The commemorative section includes a list of the parishes, missions, schools, departments and religious orders that comprise the diocese today.
Long before the Vatican declared the Islands a diocese, the Catholic faith spread in Hawaii with the arrival of missionaries from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1827. Hawaii then was considered a missionary “vicariate apostolic” and administered by Sacred Hearts priests and bishops.
Two dates are given for the establishment of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. Pope Pius XII apparently announced the creation of the Honolulu diocese on Jan. 25, 1941. No official word of this, however, was mentioned at the time in the local Catholic Herald newspaper.
Pope Pius XII that May selected Msgr. Sweeney of San Francisco to be the first diocesan bishop for the Islands. He was consecrated a bishop at a Mass celebrated at St. Mary Cathedral in San Francisco in July, 1941, before a congregation of more than 2,500 people. Among the attendees at the ceremony was a delegation of priests from Hawaii.
Bishop Silva told the Hawaii Catholic Herald back in 2011, the diocese’s 70th anniversary, that he had a decree “dated August 31, 1941, signed by John Amleto Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the U.S.A, in which he states that Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Honolulu on January 25, 1941.”
“I have no idea why seven months intervened between the establishment of the diocese and the documentation thereof, but so it is,” Bishop Silva had said.
Bishop James J. Sweeney arrived in Hawaii on Sept. 7, 1941. He was installed as bishop of the new Diocese of Honolulu in a liturgy at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace three days later. At the ceremony, a decree of the “erection of the diocese” was read before a congregation of thousands.
Sept. 10, 1941, is the date that the Official Catholic Directory lists as the birth of our diocese.
The Diocese of Honolulu was nearly three months old when the bombing of Pearl Harbor happened on Dec. 7, 1941. Establishment of the diocese predates by almost two decades Hawaii’s entrance into the U.S. as a state in 1959.
At the time of Bishop Sweeney’s installation, the diocese had approximately 120,000 Catholics, 42 parishes, 55 mission churches, one seminary and 19 Catholic schools. Today, Catholics comprise about 20 percent of the roughly 1.3 million people in Hawaii. There are now 66 parishes, 27 mission churches and 36 Catholic schools in the diocese.
Chinese, Hispanic, Korean, Samoan, Micronesian and Vietnamese ministries represent Hawaii’s multiethnic faithful. Parishes across the diocese also celebrate Masses in Hawaiian, Filipino dialects, Latin and other languages.
Two Hawaii saints, Father Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne Cope, were canonized for their selflessness in serving leprosy patients who had been exiled in Kalaupapa, Molokai.
May St. Damien, St. Marianne and Our Lady Queen of Peace, patroness of the Diocese of Honolulu, continue to intercede for Island faithful on the diocese’s 75th birthday and in the years to come.
