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New assignments have Sacred Hearts Fathers administering all of Molokai

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald | June 29, 2007

After 30 years, a Sacred Hearts priest will again be a pastor on topside Molokai. Along with the Kalaupapa parish of St. Francis, which the Sacred Hearts Congregation has administered since its founding a century ago, the order will begin serving the entire island on July 1.

Bishop Larry Silva approved the appointments of Sacred Hearts Father Clyde Guerreiro as pastor of the Molokai Catholic Community beginning next month and Sacred Hearts Father Felix Vandebroek as pastor of St. Francis Church starting Sept. 1.

Topside is the term used for all of Molokai except the four square mile Kalaupapa Peninsula at the bottom of a 1,500-foot cliff which is the site of the settlement for persons with Hansen's disease and a national park.

In an unusual and creative arrangement, the two priests have also been named as associate pastors of each other's parishes. Father Guerreiro will assist in Kalaupapa and Father Vandebroek will help out topside.

While considered one parish under the name Molokai Catholic Community, topside has four Catholic churches. The main church in central Kaunakakai is St. Sophia. The outlying churches are St. Vincent Church in Maunaloa on the west side, Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Kaluaaha on the east side, and in Kamalo on the south coast, the tiny St. Joseph Church, which is used more as a shrine. An effort is underway to replace St. Sophia with a new and larger church named for Blessed Damien. According to the Sacred Hearts provincial superior Father Christopher Keahi, the new arrangement will enable the two priests to engage in the "communitarian lifestyle" required of their "apostolic religious life."

Sacred Hearts priests in Hawaii are no longer assigned to parishes alone, he explained. While Father Guerreiro and Father Vandebroek will be individual pastors, as each other's associate pastor, they will benefit through "camaraderie, collaboration and community living." Father Keahi said that his congregation further envisions a community of several Sacred Hearts Fathers and Sisters working to build a stronger parish and perpetuate the memory of Blessed Damien. According to the provincial superior, the Sacred Hearts Fathers' U.S. Conference hopes to establish on Molokai a Damien information and pilgrimage center, a youth camp and a retreat center. The Sacred Hearts Sisters, he said, hope to assist the topside parish in its pastoral and catechetical mission.

Aiea-born Father Guerreiro, 58, is now the associate pastor of St. Ann Church, Kaneohe. He is also a former provincial superior of the Sacred Hearts Priests and Brothers. On Molokai he will replace Father Jose Macoy, who has been assigned as the administrator of St. Mary Church in Hana. Father Vandebroek, 78, is a native of Belgium. Since coming to Hawaii in 1956, he has served in parishes on Oahu, the Big Island, Maui and Kauai. He is now the administrator of St. Mary Parish in Hana on Maui.

Ill health has forced the current pastor of St. Francis, Kalaupapa, Sacred Hearts Father Joseph Hendriks, to live on Oahu for most of the past year. Meanwhile, the church has been served through a number of temporary clergy assignments. The priest there now is Father Barry Bercier, an Augustinian priest from California.

Blessed Damien de Veuster became Molokai's first permanent resident priest when he slept under a hala tree in Kalawao on the Kalaupapa peninsula the night of May 10, 1873. He initially went to the island on a temporary assignment by his bishop to serve the leprosy patients who were permanently quarantined there.

While assigned to Kalawao and Kalaupapa, Father Damien would climb the cliff to topside where he built three churches and served their congregations. Before he arrived, the main part of the island was visited periodically by priests from Honolulu. It wasn't until 1900 that a priest was assigned to reside there. The priests all belonged to the Sacred Hearts Congregation. In 1977, a lack of priests forced the Sacred Hearts Fathers to leave topside Molokai to the care of the diocesan clergy. At that time topside had two parishes, St. Sophia and Sacred Heart in Hoolehua.

Two churches have closed since the Sacred Hearts Fathers left - Sacred Heart and St. Theresa Mission Church in Kualapuu.