Mary Adamski: Feeding the hungry in the face of opposition

VIEW FROM THE PEW

I got a bit irate last week in a letter to the editor of the daily newspaper. I waxed indignant about the heavy-handed way top city officials pressured a Catholic church to knock off doing what Jesus taught us to do, giving food, drink and solace to the poor.

So you might expect me to continue in a triumphant-sassy tone because, as you see in news reports, business-as-usual resumed at Aunty Carmen’s Kitchen in Waikiki. It’s the upbeat second chapter to a previous report when St. Augustine-by-the-Sea paused its 50-year-long free lunch service as demanded by Mayor Rick Blangiardi. I won’t.

Neither did Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona, St. Augustine’s pastor, take a “we win” tone talking about it. He was delighted at the support he got from other churches and organizations who were “saddened” by the shutdown. He touted the free services on offer Thursdays in the church parking, from the “Revive and Refresh” van with shower and laundry service, to medical students with health care for the homeless and a veterinarian for their pets, to court officers giving basic legal help. Basically, the change made was to move the food service deeper into the church parking lot, instead of at the entrance.

In response to the mayor’s remarks on TV about the “antagonistic” response, the priest said, “I was defying no one. My allegiance is to God and to the bishop.” Father Akiona didn’t even flex his muscles with the mayor, pointing out that he was elected the provincial, national leader, of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Or that the first Catholic missionaries to Hawaii established the Waikiki church in 1854, long before the landscape was cluttered with hotels.

My published letter may have seemed antagonistic. I understand there was quite an outpouring of venom on social media sites but I don’t wander in that scary space. Sorry, Mayor, for being sassy. But you came from the broadcast news business so you must know that beieng entitled to everyone’s opinion is in an elected politician’s job description.

I was expecting a word about the food service shutdown in the homily — or the prayer intentions — that Sunday in my parish, also staffed by Sacred Hearts priests. Especially since the July 23 Sunday paper headline announced, “They’re baaaack.” Nope, not a word.

Homily in print

But I was cheered by a homily in print, an opinion column by the Rev. David Gierlach. It’s well worth time to seek it online.

The rector of St. Elizabeth Episcopal Church in Kalihi wrote about Jesus teaching in parables. In one parable, Jesus talked about how God will separate people, like sheep and goats, deciding who is bound for heaven or hell, at the Last Judgment.

When that time comes “the questions asked are not about your doctrine or creed, but about how you cared for (or didn’t care for) the hungry, the naked and the prisoner. The point of the parable is that if you want to meet Jesus, you shall find him in the face of the hungry, the naked, the outcast, said Father Gierlach.

“Would Jesus have been in that meeting with the mayor and the (police) majors and the priest, insisting that the lunch be closed down? Or would Jesus have been standing in line — waiting for that sandwich, that cold drink?

“When we put economic well-being ahead of human need, we almost always get it wrong,” wrote the Episcopal pastor. His North King Street church is the site of Wallyhouse, a homeless outreach center in the model of the Catholic Worker movement. Hot lunches, food and clothing distribution and a variety of social services are provided by a corps of volunteers. The center was opened in 2018 in the former residence of the church rector.

There’s a lot of Christian spirit going on in that Kalihi-Palama area, such a different economic landscape that Waikiki, the center of tourist industry, which ironically claims to be in the “hospitality” business. Homeless tents are part of the scenery there, too.

Next door to St. Elizabeth is Kaumakapili Church, one of the oldest Christian churches on Oahu where the basement floor with an open door is called Hale Aloha. Since the 1970s it has been a distribution site for donated clothing and other items.

Change in operation

Now it is one of several food distribution centers supplied by Hawaii Foodbank. Anne Leak, head of the outreach program, said 300 people are enrolled in the program and about 130 arrive each Wednesday to collect nonperishable food. Unlike other locations where boxes are prepared by volunteers, “it’s self-selection, people choose what they can use.”

There has been a major change in the operation of Hawaii Foodbank, said Leak. Prior to March, each food pantry paid for canned meat, fruit, and other perishables to hand out at their food pantries. There’s no charge now, but when Foodbank supplies are sparse, it means putting limits on how much a recipient can take, she said.

It’s not just a “get and go” charity model. Personal connections are an important element, so volunteers spend “talk story” time, said Leak, a retired nurse practitioner. “One of the social services offered is helping people sign up for food stamps.

“What is missing in some distribution programs is that it’s all about the food, but not so much time on evangelization,” said Leak. “People need to feel that their soul is worth something. We have to stand by them and point them in the right direction.”

Leak said, “I think Catholics understand what Jesus was trying to say about poverty better than Protestants.”

According to Father Robert Stark, director of the diocesan Office for Social Ministry, “The diocese has 40 feeding ministries including food pantries and meals or lunches for the vulnerable.”

But let’s not get sidetracked by Protestant theologian John Calvin’s concept of “predestination.” That would take us astray from this story of corporal works of mercy.

Leak said that Kaumakapili Church, like other churches, works with other religious and social service agencies, such as Faith Collaboration and Hawaii Island Ministries, to collaborate on bringing various services to the poor where they are found. The expression in use is “social supermarket.”

One of the biggest players on the outreach scene these days is River of Life, which Mayor Blangiardi forced to shut down in Chinatown months ago. The evangelical Christian organization relocated a few blocks away in Iwilei. It has expanded its hot meal evangelizing effort big time. Its horde of volunteers now deliver hot lunches at several Oahu churches and other locations which mostly offer a meal once a week.

Central Union Church, a landmark in a Makiki area more upscale than Kalihi, is also in the Hawaii Foodbank distribution network. More than 50 volunteers package and hand out food to about 300 people each Wednesday, both in walk-up and drive-through lanes, said Natasha Dator, pastoral administrative assistant. It’s been underway since March 2020.

Both the Kalihi and Makiki congregations are part of the United Church of Christ, the state’s largest Protestant denomination.

Central Union was one of the first churches to start a free lunch outreach to the homeless. It was about 20 years ago, when tent encampments first started appearing near the John A. Burns School of Medicine. Central Union volunteers cooked hot meals and distributed them. That outreach faced the same uncharitable attitude from the city powers of the day as did St. Augustine. The city stopped food service on government property.

I do get it, how frustrating it is for government officials to try to placate the tourism industry and keep our economic engine revving. And I can agree with Father Gierlach who wrote sympathetically about the challenges facing the understaffed police department in controlling drug-abusing or criminally-inclined predators among the growing numbers of homeless people.

Feeling sad and helpless

Mostly, I feel sad and helpless and I think I have a lot of company there. I’m in no shape to be on the frontlines in any way. How can you not be sad, as you pass shabby curbside tents and then look up at the Kakaako highrise skyline of pricey housing where many windows are dark and apartments vacant, investments by outsiders, not homes for residents. How can you not be irate when a government agency waives the zoning code height restriction, benefitting a millionaire developer whose project will begin with destruction of rundown, walk-up apartments which lower income people could at least afford. We’ll be seeing them in tents, no hope of ever affording the highrise home.

Actually, I should have added shame to my litany of irate and sad feelings. For years, my parish had one of the best food distribution programs on Oahu. Hundreds of people came to St. James in Palolo, a decommissioned church turned into food pantry. On a bus route, it was used by people from distant neighborhoods. I was a short-lived volunteer in the program, quitting in frustration at the precision box-packing regimen of older ladies. The beans had to be placed to the right and the noodles on the left, something like that. I withdrew to being a checkbook participant.

In 2006, a new pastor came to reign and eventually shut down the food pantry. Pau, no parishioner opinions wanted. He had dreams of building an edifice complex, community center, early learning space, enhanced school structures. The plans died with him.

I remember another busy food outreach biting the dust because it became inconvenient. The late Mickey Reich, an energetic, gabby little Irish lady definitely knew how to “talk story” as she dispensed packaged food from a tiny office in the Chancery building, the downtown diocesan headquarters.

When Hawaii Pacific University began expanding into Fort Street buildings, the college administration began complaining about homeless and poor people in the way of HPU students. That, plus the fact that the cathedral pastor of that time wanted to open a gift shop, put an end to outreach to the poor at the Catholic church headquarters.

Okay, enough of my angst.

As a believer in signs and portents, I am tingling at a coincidence that occurred in the Hawaii Catholic Herald’s July 21 edition. The closing of Aunty Carmen’s Kitchen was the front-page story.

Near the back of each Herald edition, there’s a wire service photo feature highlighting either one of the Beatitudes or one of the corporal works of mercy. It’s an ongoing refresher course in our catechism. You remember there’s seven “works” don’t you? Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Clothe the naked. Visit the imprisoned. Shelter the homeless. Visit the sick. Bury the dead.

I told editor Patrick Downes how clever it was to run number one on that list to match the front page.

His response: “That was the Holy Spirit.” That back page was laid out days before the St. Augustine story was written.