Sacred Hearts Brother Esitio Niuliki outside of St. Ann Church in Kaneohe. (HCH Photo | Anna Weaver)
As Sacred Hearts Brother Esitio Niuliki approaches ordination, he is ready to celebrate the fulfillment of a dream
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
On a bright All Saints Day, Sacred Hearts Brother Esitio Niuliki was busy going between yardwork at his religious orders’ Bethany Center in Kaneohe and leading adoration at nearby St. Ann Parish in Kaneohe to mark the holy day. Plus a newspaper reporter had asked to interview him in advance of his priesthood ordination, which is set to take place at St. Ann Church on Nov. 23 at 10 a.m.
Brother Niuliki however didn’t seem at all fazed by the activity of the day, presenting a calm and warm face as he talked about his journey from a small island in French Polynesia to joining the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
‘You look like you could be a priest’
Esitio “Tio” Niuliki, 38, was born in Alo, Futuna, part of the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands, a French collectivity of islands north of Fiji and west of Samoa, which has a 2019 population estimate of about 11,400 (see map). Futuna itself has about 5,000 residents. Niuliki first learned to speak French and his island’s dialect, Futunan, and English second.
His parents, Setelo and Pelenatita, had nine children, seven boys and two girls, of which Tio is the second oldest. The Niuliki family farmed and fished, and like most people in Wallis and Futuna, they were Roman Catholic.
As he grew up, people would tell Tio he might have a religious calling. He was an altar server and involved in his church, and his family encouraged his vocation.
“My grandparents said, ‘You look like you could be a priest,’” Niuliki said.
One big influence on both Tio and the Catholic population at large in Wallis and Futuna is St. Peter Chanel. The French missionary priest to Polynesia was killed in 1841 on the island of Futuna after the local chief Niuliki — with whom Tio’s family has a distant kinship — became worried about his own son’s Catholic conversion. Father Chanel was killed in what is Tio’s parish today, and his martyrdom and the continued work of French missionaries in the area led to the fairly quick Catholic conversion of the islands.
When Tio began seriously considering a formal religious life, he went through a diocesan-sponsored “Come and See” program where he learned about the differences between diocesan priests and religious order priests.
“The [formation program] priest advised all the candidates to priesthood life to spend more time with family in order to have a further experience in our culture and also in our human development,” Brother Niuliki said. “So, it was a great moment to really understand the condition of being a future servant of the Catholic faith.”
In time he decided he wanted to be a missionary priest, in the spirit of St. Peter Chanel.
He initially joined the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), a different though similarly named religious order to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, in 2007. By 2010, Niuliki had earned a theology diploma. But in 2012, he decided to leave the order and spent a year working at an MSC-led parish in Fiji.
Map of Pacific islands including Wallis and Futuna, rectangle near center
The Sacred Hearts spirit
Eventually he was drawn to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, also known as the Picpus Fathers. In 2013, after writing Sacred Hearts Father Clyde Guerreiro, Niuliki went to the Sacred Hearts mission in Tonga to meet with him and Sacred Hearts Father Chris Kaitapu about joining the order.
“The spirit of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts speaks to my personal call to religious life,” Brother Niuliki said. “Behind that also is the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood in our congregation.”
By 2014, he had begun his pre-novitiate period, the first step into the order. Next was his novice formation at Bethany Center in Kaneohe, after which he professed temporary vows on Aug. 1, 2015, at St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki, and took the title of Brother.
So did another Sacred Hearts brother, Semisi Pulotu. Both were a part of the first novitiate class of the Sacred Hearts congregation’s Tonga mission, which started in November 2012, but is now coming to an end. In the last decade, the U.S province has seen a boom in vocations, with 17 men in the formation pipeline, not including Brother Niuliki.
In fall 2015, Brother Niuliki headed to the Pacific Regional Seminary in Fiji, graduating in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology that was accredited by Urbaniana University in Rome.
Sacred Hearts Father Richard McNally, pastor of St. Ann, Kaneohe, was the superior in Fiji while Brother Niuliki was at seminary there. He said that Brother Niuliki is very service-oriented and approachable and makes connections easily.
“Because he’s close to people, he can communicate the Gospel and God’s love for people well,” Father McNally said. “I think he will be very serious about celebrating the sacraments and giving people Christ.”
“It’s one thing to be down to earth, but that’s not enough,” he said. “You have to be giving people the truth of Christ and the Catholic faith.”
After seminary in Fiji, Brother Niuliki spent his pastoral year from 2018 to 2019 at St. Mary Parish in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where the U.S. East Coast province was headquartered until it merged with the Hawaii province in November 2011.
On Feb. 2, 2019, the Sacred Hearts U.S. provincial superior Father Herman Gomes heard Brother Niuliki’s perpetual vows at St. Mary Church. A week later on Feb. 9, Bishop Edgar da Cunha of the Fall River Diocese of Massachusetts ordained him a transitional deacon at the same church.
Bishop Edgar da Cunha of the Fall River Diocese of Massachusetts congratulates Deacon Niuliki at the end of his ordination Mass on Jan. Photo courtesy Brother Esitio Niuliki
Two weeks prior to his Aug. 23 ordination, Brother Niuliki went on retreat with his fellow congregation members at St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi.
“I have experienced how wonderful it is to feel that we belong to the family of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary as a unique gift,” he said via email after returning from the retreat. “I believe that was a special moment for me to reflect deeply through my relationship with God and my preparation to the call for priesthood life.”
Time to celebrate
The U.S. Province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts serves parishes and chaplaincies in Hawaii, Massachusetts and Texas, and missions in India, Tonga and Fiji.
In line with that international feeling, Brother Niuliki supporters at his Nov. 23 ordination are expected to come from New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, France, Fiji and the mainland U.S.
A group from St. Mary Parish in Fairhaven including their pastor, Sacred Hearts Father David Lupo, who previously served in Hawaii, will be there. So too will Niuliki’s mother (Niuliki’s father died in 2016), several of his brothers, one of his sisters, a good number of aunts and uncles, and other extended family. The high chief Tiafoi from Futuna is also set to attend.
Father McNally said that Brother Niuliki is well-known and well-respected on Futuna.
“He has a reputation for being a great preacher, especially an evangelizer for youth,” he said.
In his area of the world and in his family, Brother Niuliki said that when people get together “we need to sing and we need to dance!”
There was dancing at his diaconate ordination reception, so one anticipates there will be dancing at his post-ordination reception too and in the days leading up to it as his family and friends gather on Oahu.
“We are all dancing people! Any small thing, dance!” Brother Niuliki said with a big grin.
He plays the guitar and ukulele, sings and also composes songs. He wrote one for his ordination Mass called “I Am the Alpha and Omega,” which will be sung by some of his brothers during the offertory.
“He lights up the world around him,” said Sacred Hearts Brother Darius Amansec, who was in formation in Tonga and Fiji at the same time as Brother Niuliki. “He has a way of making things simple, not complicated.”
Brother Amansec also pointed out that Brother Niuliki also loves food. At that, Brother Niuliki patted his stomach as he mentioned a particular fondness for pork. (Perhaps one should also expect an excellent spread of food at his ordination reception.)
The day after he is ordained, Brother Niuliki will have a first Mass at St. Ann, where he has been serving since August. After a trip home to preside at a Mass in his home parish, Father Niuliki will continue on at St. Ann as a parochial vicar. Then he is ready to go wherever the order needs him.
“I believe that if the spirit is alive in the way we live in our community and in our formation as brothers and sisters of the Sacred Hearts,” he said, “then it will be the gift flowing from us to go out and practice our same charism in society.”
