The Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii on the hills overlooking Waialua on Oahu.
The Italy-based Olivetan Benedictine Congregation has decided to close the Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii, one of its 25 monasteries around the world, resulting in the local members exploring ways to retain their presence and ministry in Hawaii. Bishop Larry Silva is supporting their efforts.
Father David Barfknecht, the superior of the Hawaii Benedictines, spelled out the situation in a letter to associates, friends and benefactors on Feb. 3.
According to Father Barfknecht, the abbot general of the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation with his advisory council decided in November to shutter two of five U.S. Olivetan monasteries, including Hawaii’s, because of the advancing age and dwindling numbers of their members.
The abbot general had intended that the Hawaii Benedictines would move into one of the remaining U.S. monasteries and had set a March 21 deadline for them to choose where they would go.
However, Father Barfknecht, 63, said the local community does not want to move and has asked its Italian superior to withdraw the deadline “to allow more time and a process for discerning and accomplishing what needs to be done.”
“In general, the community does not want to cease or to leave our monastic life of prayer and ministry here in Hawaii,” Father Barfknecht wrote in his letter.
Benedictine Father David Barfknecht
He said his community is “formulating a response to this unexpected turn of events and discerning what we will actually do.”
“We are in the process of investigating and assessing our options, especially what avenues exist to keep the monastery in Waialua open and the community intact,” he said.
The announcement has resulted in some confusion and alarm, Father Barfknecht told the Hawaii Catholic Herald by phone on Feb. 6. “We don’t want to hide anything,” he said, but at this point, “we can’t promise anything to anybody.”
The Hawaii Benedictine community has four men and four women, although only the men, whose average age is in the mid-70s, are considered official members by the male international congregation. The Hawaii community is unique among the Olivetan Benedictines with the inclusion of women members who also take religious vows, live in the same community as the men and answer to the same superior.
Good reasons
Father Barfknecht said he finds no fault or negativity in the decision of the abbot general.
He said his superior is acting “for good reason” for the benefit of the worldwide congregation which, like many orders, is facing a declining numbers of vocations. Many other religious orders are “consolidating” their communities in similar ways, he explained.
Nevertheless, it may come as a surprise to some to learn that the 25-year-old Hawaii-style monastery on the slopes of Waialua maintains an allegiance to a large medieval pink-stone abbey in Italy’s Tuscany hills, south of Siena.
The Waialua monastery is one of 25 monasteries worldwide of the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation, whose headquarters resides in the 14th-century Archabbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore in Italy.
The other U.S. Olivetan monasteries are in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Louisiana.
Father Barfknecht expects that the Hawaii community’s decision to seek independence “won’t come as a total shock” to the motherhouse.
The ties between Hawaii and Italy have not been that strong and no one from the order’s governing body had visited Hawaii as part of its assessment of the Waialua community.
As a solution gets sorted out, Father Barfknecht said, “we expect to continue to live and function as we have been until there is clarity about what comes next.”
Father Barfknecht said that, according to the Code of Canon Law, the church’s rule book, there are options the group can take in splitting from its parent community while maintaining a local identity and ministry.
“We are working on the options and we have a canon lawyer here working with the bishop and the local canon lawyer,” he said.
Hawaii’s Benedictines could come under the authority of the local bishop as a “lay association of the faithful.” The three Benedictine priests would be permitted to operate outside of their religious order as monks and priests in Hawaii.
He said that the new autonomy should put them “in a better place to attract vocations, to be who we are,” he said.
Eventually, if the community grows and fulfills certain standards, it could qualify for a more formal category of religious institute and eventual recognition by the Vatican.
“Hopefully nothing is going to change; we would still be a Benedictine monastery,” he said.
Father Barfknecht believes this is an “opportunity” to open a new chapter for Hawaii’s Benedictine community.
“I really feel that it is the Lord’s timing,” he said. “It’s pretty much in God’s hands. We are trying to do what God wants us to do.”
“But now’s the time,” he said. “You don’t know unless you try. All you can do is try and wait upon the Lord.”
“We can see God’s provision in this. It is an opportunity for him to bless us,” he said.
The monastery is in good financial shape, Father Barfknecht said.
“The Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii is a nonprofit corporation in the state of Hawaii,” he said. If the community here remains intact, there should be no major legal problems with any changes in canonical status.
The origins of Hawaii’s Benedictine community go back to September 1983 when Abbot David Geraets of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Pecos, N.M., asked Benedictine Father Michael Sawyer to respond to Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario’s invitation to begin a new foundation in the islands. The Pecos monastery had both men and women members and had embraced the Catholic Charismatic movement.
By February 1984, four members from the Pecos motherhouse joined Father Sawyer in a temporary house on Waialae Iki Ridge from which they began to offer parish missions and retreats, and accepted their first oblates.
In 1986, Father Sawyer found the present monastery property, 67 acres overlooking Waialua with a one-story ranch house and a grand view of rolling hills and the blue Pacific.
The community has since added other facilities including a seven-sided pavilion which houses the chapel, a conference and dining room, a kitchen and a bookstore.
The present community consists of three priests, four sisters and one brother. They are Father Timothy Ottman, Father Sawyer and Father Barfknecht, Brother Gregory Foret, Sister Mary Jo McEnany, Sister Geralyn Spaulding, Sister Ann Cic and Sister Celeste Cabral.
The community’s patron is the Blessed Mother under the title “Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit.”
Father Barfknecht said the monastery has 80 to 100 oblates, lay people who have made a commitment to the Benedictine spirituality through a yearlong series of classes and a final promise or oblation. He said about 25 of them attend the monastery’s monthly Oblate Sunday.
He said the monastery also has a “wonderful” longtime spiritual association with the Basic Christian Community of Hawaii.
The Benedictines also participate in Hawaii’s Catholic charismatic movement, pro-life ministries, spiritual counseling and vocations work. The priests also occasionally assist local parishes in celebrating Mass and the sacraments.
