Father Joseph Diaz at this desk at St. Anthony Parish, Kailua. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
Father Joseph Diaz has served in Hawaii parishes since 2006
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
When the Diocese of Honolulu announced that its next vocations director was one of the three parish priests at St. Anthony Parish in Kailua, the joke became that the low-on-priests diocese had wised up to that well-stocked parish — most Hawaii parishes have only one or two priests — and promoted one of them elsewhere.
Joking aside, Father Joseph Ramelo R. “Bong” Diaz is a seasoned parish priest in his early 50s who says he is ready to take on the role of diocesan vocation director.
“I believe this is where the Spirit is leading me at this time … after 25 years, to be able to share my priesthood [experience] with those who are wanting to become priests,” he said.
Father Diaz will become the Diocese of Honolulu’s new vocations director on June 1. He replaces Father Rheo Ofalsa, who was incardinated into the diocese in 2018 and recently became the pastor of Holy Family Parish in Honolulu.
Father Diaz has been in Hawaii since 2006 and is one of 19 priests currently “on loan” here from their dioceses in the Philippines.
Before being assigned to St. Anthony Parish in Kailua, Father Diaz served as an administrator at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Honokaa on Hawaii Island and St. Jude Parish in Kapolei on Oahu.
This is his 25th year as a priest and he was among those recognized at the annual diocesan jubilarian Mass on May 11.
The call from Bishop Silva inviting Father Diaz to become the diocesan vocations director was unexpected, he said, as he has not formally worked in a vocations ministry before.
“I asked him if I could pray over it,” he said, before accepting. Then he felt God was calling him to the job.
“After 25 years serving in different parishes, I think this is worth exploring in regards to my vocation as a priest.”
Didn’t plan on priesthood
Diaz was born to the late Melchor and Carmen Diaz in 1968 in Cagayan de Oro City on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. He has one sibling, Sister Maria Carmela Diaz of the Carmelite Sisters of the Philippines.
After graduating from an all-boys Catholic high school in Tagum, he went to catch the bus one day to register for classes at his local university. But he missed that bus and knew the next one would arrive too late for him to enroll.
Because it was a hot day, Diaz decided to wander through the shaded grounds of the nearby Queen of Apostles College Seminary in Tagum, which he was familiar with as it neighbored his high school. There he came across a priest, then-Father Medil Sacay Aseo, who is now the Diocese of Tagum’s bishop. Father Aseo invited him to have some refreshments in the seminary cafeteria. After talking for a bit, the priest said he had to go and give a seminary entrance test to another young man.
“Maybe you want to take the test too?” Father Aseo asked Diaz.
Diaz did, was accepted and enrolled thinking he’d pick up some college prerequisites at the seminary for the semester before transferring to a regular college. A semester became a year, and a year became four until he was graduating. Then he was among a small number of seminarians selected to do his theology studies at the Jesuit-run San Jose Major Seminary in Manila.
Father Diaz said it was around that time that he realized it wasn’t a coincidence that he made his way onto the seminary grounds that hot day.
“It was God leading me to this kind of life,” he said. “I see how God has always been there, even in the most challenging times of my life. I’ve seen his goodness.”
After Father Diaz was ordained a priest in 1994, he served in various parishes in his home Diocese of Tagum on Mindanao. Muslims make up 23 percent of the island’s population according to a 2015 census, and Father Diaz worked for several years on behalf of his diocese in interfaith relations with the Muslim community.
He says that in the Philippines, every parish actively promotes vocations, and he hopes to get Hawaii parishes more involved in the vocations process. Father Diaz also hopes to work more closely with the diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, planting vocations seeds among the younger generation.
Father Diaz says he knows that the current vocational climate is challenging right now in the wake of declining church attendance and the aftermath of the clerical sexual abuse crisis.
But, “with the grace of God I’m praying that there will be more vocations for the Diocese of Honolulu,” he said.
Anna Weaver is a parishioner at St. Anthony in Kailua, where Father Diaz is the departing parochial vicar.
