St. Pius X Catholic Church, Manoa

Father Michael Thomas Tupou Castori

The Vatican accepted the resignation of Bishop Larry Silva and named Jesuit priest Father Michael Thomas Tupou Castori to lead the Diocese of Honolulu. He will be the sixth bishop of Honolulu.

The diocese introduced Castori as bishop-elect Wednesday at the St. Stephen Diocesan Center in Kaneohe. Castori was scheduled to be the main celebrant of a public Mass on Thursday, May 7, at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu.

The diocese said Castori has served in pastoral ministry and education in California and in the South Pacific, with experience in Tonga, Guam, Fiji and the Marshall Islands

Castori is a member of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits. The diocese said he most recently served as rector of the Arrupe Jesuit Community at Seattle University.

The diocese said Castori has served in pastoral ministry and educaƟon in California and in the South Pacific, with experience in Tonga, Guam, Fiji and the Marshall Islands.

“I was warmly welcomed into the home of Malatino and Kalalaī Tupou in the village of Fasimoafoe (in Tonga), means faith with fire, and became fully a member of their family,” Castori said. “My legal middle name, Tupou, is a marker of that moment in my life.

“It certainly heightened my interest and desire to the language and the culture, but most of all just to experience the graces of life in the Pacific,” he said.

Castori said he iniƟally wanted to decline the appointment, but aŌer praying,he believed God was calling him to accept the role.

Castori said he iniƟally wanted to decline the appointment, but after praying, he believed God was calling him to accept the role.

“During those two days, I found relief for my soul in only two prayers: ‘Your will be done’ and the prayer of St. IgnaƟus Loyola,” he said.

He said he knows there is a lot of anger, hurt and unrest in the world and seeks to be a light during this present darkness.

“If you really stay with the promises that our Lord made to us, you will find hope and others who are working together to try to heal the wounds of sin and division, and try to lift up those who are least in society, mend the brokenhearted. This is our faith,” he said.

What happens next

The diocese said Castori must first be ordained a bishop and then installed to formally take leadership of the Diocese of Honolulu.

His episcopal ordination and installation are scheduled for Tuesday, July 28, at 10a.m. at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa.

The diocese said Silva will serve as apostolic administrator beginning May 6

May 10

Saint Damien de Veuster of Moloka’i’s Story

When Joseph de Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium, in 1840, few people in Europe had any firsthand knowledge of leprosy, Hansen’s disease. By the time he died at the age of 49, people all over the world knew about this disease because of him. They knew that human compassion could soften the ravages of this disease.

Forced to quit school at age 13 to work on the family farm, Joseph entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary six years later, taking the name of a fourth-century physician and martyr. When his brother Pamphile, a priest in the same congregation, fell ill and was unable to go to the Hawaiian Islands as assigned, Damien quickly volunteered in his place. In May 1864, two months after arriving in his new mission, Damien was ordained a priest in Honolulu and assigned to the island of Hawaii.

In 1873, he went to the Hawaiian government’s leper colony on the island of Moloka’i, set up seven years earlier. Part of a team of four chaplains taking that assignment for three months each year, Damien soon volunteered to remain permanently, caring for the people’s physical, medical, and spiritual needs. In time, he became their most effective advocate to obtain promised government support.

Soon the settlement had new houses and a new church, school and orphanage. Morale improved considerably. A few years later, he succeeded in getting the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, led by Mother Marianne Cope, to help staff this colony in Kalaupapa.

Saint Damien contracted Hansen’s disease and died of its complications. As requested, he was buried in Kalaupapa, but in 1936 the Belgian government succeeded in having his body moved to Belgium. Part of Damien’s body was returned to his beloved Hawaiian brothers and sisters after his beatification in 1995.

When Hawaii became a state in 1959, it selected Damien of Moloka’i as one of its two representatives in the Statuary Hall at the US Capitol. Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009.