A HOLY FRIEND IN HAWAII

When I lived in Hawaii (Oahu)  fifty years ago, my pastor in Manoa Valley, was MSGR. CHARLES KEKUMANO. Not only was he my pastor, but we soon became friends, especially when he knew I had a religious vocation.  He was born in 1919 in Kona on the  Big Island of Hawai‘i. Educated at Saint Louis High School in Honolulu, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained for the Diocese of Honolulu. He earned a doctorate in Canon law from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and was appointed chancellor of the Honolulu diocese, secretary to Bishop James Joseph Sweeney, and later rector of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

In 1961 he was named an honorary chaplain of the Papal household, with the title of Monsignor, by (St.) John XXIII, the first native Hawaiian to hold such an honor.

Shortly after Father Joseph Anthony Ferrario became bishop, Msgr. Kekumano left the diocese of Honolulu, to work in the diocese of Juneau. He retired in 1984 and returned to Honolulu. He was involved in many civic organizations, including the American Red Cross, the Duke Kahanamoku Foundation, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, and the Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu. He also served on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, the Honolulu Police Commission, the Maui Charter Commission, and the Hawaii Commission on Children and Youth.

He was proud of his Hawaiian heritage and left a lasting impression in the islands.

In 1997 he was co-author of the essay "Broken Trust" which criticized Kamehameha Schools, the largest private landowner in Hawaii, resulting in their reorganization. He died of cancer on January 18, 1998 in St. Francis Hospice in Honolulu, at the age of 78.

The former president of Punahou School in Oahu, said: "He was a man of such marvelous integrity and willingness to step forward on the issues of the day, including, of course, the recent Bishop Estate controversy.

With Hubert Humphrey

Walter Dods Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of First Hawaiian Bank and one of three trustees of the Queen Liliuokalani Trust wrote, "His strong sense of the value of family and community, his courage, his down-to-earth and accessible nature and his ever-present humor will be forever a part of the legacy of the Queen Liliuokalani Trust.  Monsignor's deep and abiding understanding of his Hawaiian heritage sets an outstanding example for all of us and especially the beneficiaries and the staff of the trust."

"Broken Trust" co-author Randy Roth said  when  Msgr. Kekumano's cancer was announced that everyone should have a hero and Kekumano was one of his. "He's someone I admire greatly, and I hope someday I'll have one-tenth the wisdom and graciousness he has." 

Even today there are scholarships in his honor, namely The Kekumano Award & Scholarship which celebrates and perpetuates the spirit of service to others and giving back to the community. It was established in memory of Monsignor Charles A. Kekumano’s selfless contributions to the islands.

In his own words:  I was born in Kona, actually on the shores of Kealakekua Bay, and the old family home was directly across from the Captain Cook monument. I should not have been born there because the family had moved to Honolulu, but my grandfather had this notion that his grandchild should be born at the old place and those were the days of the interisland ships, the little things that went from island to island--obviously very rough in the channels. Anyway, my mother and I were carted over there so that I could be born at the old place. The only one living in the old house at the time was my great-grandmother, who was then almost ninety, and I was born there with those two ladies. My mother had been very sickly and, at that time, became much more sickly. Consequently, the word came back to Honolulu that she was not doing well, so my grandmother came over and brought me back to Honolulu. I was then two weeks old. …

The interesting aspect is that my grandfather, of course, was full-blooded Hawaiian with a tremendous respect for everything that was Hawaiian. I remember, for example, when I was five years old, my cousins and I, all of his grandchildren, were taken to Kona to visit my great-grandmother and we were schooled before we left Honolulu by him as to how to address her in Hawaiian. So we learned these expressions in Hawaiian, to speak to her very politely and how you said it to your grandmother and how you said it with respect. 

Very early in my life I picked up a deep respect for not only the Hawaiian words, but the way you used them and the differences of your speaking to someone who's of the family, someone your own age, someone who has earned or deserves respect and so forth. My grandmother, step-grandmother, was part-Hawaiian. She also had German and Spanish in her. She raised me from then on. My mother never completely recovered and I saw her only a few times. I always saw her in bed. I was only allowed to come in and I was held up in mid-air over the bed and, "Say hello' to your mother.”

With Bishop Scanlan

As I knew him, he was a gentle priest driven by his love for the Hawaiian people and had the ability to work out differences that were seemingly unsolvable. He had a love for the Church and did all he could to further the love of Christ among his people. At the time, there was talk that he could be the first Hawaiian born bishop, but he  was too controversial in his politics- something like Jesus Himself!