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Red Mass: ‘Negativity’ hampers efforts to solve Hawaii’s problems

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Red Mass: ‘Negativity’ hampers efforts to solve Hawaii’s problems


Bishop Larry Silva stands with Hawaii Gov. Josh Green after the annual diocesan Red Mass Jan. 16 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. (HCH photo | Jennifer Rector)

Red Mass speaker: Eva Andrade

By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald

“Many pressing issues challenge our state,” Eva Andrade told Hawaii lawmakers and other public servants at the Red Mass celebrated by Bishop Larry Silva Jan. 16 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, however an unrelenting climate of “negativity” is smothering efforts working toward the common good.

Andrade, director of the Hawaii Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Diocese of Honolulu, was the featured speaker at the diocese’s annual prayer to the Holy Spirit for courage and wisdom for Hawaii’s public servants.

She praised the civic leaders for their commitment to making people’s lives better.

“Homelessness, a lack of living wages, high vacancies in our state government that cripple our ability to provide needed services, families leaving our islands to find affordable living elsewhere, a rise in suicides, recovery from the devasting fire in Lahaina,” are serious challenges facing Island leaders, she said, but making them worse is “a relentless stream of critics.”

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“Negativity has grown to the point of crisis,” said Andrade, who is also president of Hawaii Family Forum. “Over the past several years, I have witnessed more, and more vicious, verbal attacks against people in leadership positions including the governor, our state legislators, police officers, military personnel, judges, church leaders and just about everyone else.”

She said that participation in the legislative process is a right that should be encouraged, however, “personal attacks via emails, phone calls, text messages and rallies have turned into harassment.”

“This verbal abuse must cease,” she said.

“This does not align with the spirit of the Aloha State,” she said. “We are all created in the image of God, deserving respect and consideration.”

“For all of us, courage becomes the trait that propels us to action. The outcome of our efforts, whether we ‘win’ or ‘lose’ an issue, pales in comparison to the transformative power that unfolds in the aftermath. It is in the post-battle moments that our character is truly shaped and defined. Building good moral character is how we can best shape politics in Hawaii,” Andrade said.

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“We work together because we love Hawaii and its people. We all do what we do because we want to make a difference. Whether we are the governor, the bishop, or a stay-at-home mom, we matter. Our values matter. Our decisions matter. Our lives matter,” she said.

Andrade used St. Marianne of Molokai as an example of a successful collaboration between state and church in the service of Hawaii’s people.

“I gained a profound understanding of the compassionate spirit embodied by a woman from Syracuse who journeyed to Hawaii at the desperate request of King Kalakaua to care for his citizens afflicted by Hansen’s disease,” she said.

“When it came to serving the people of Hawaii, Mother Marianne seamlessly bridged the gap between church and state,” Andrade said. “She set a positive example of what can be achieved.”

The Mass began with a Hawaiian chant by Ikaika Maliikapu Bantolina. State senators Brandon Elefante and Mike Gabbard read the two readings.

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In his homily, Bishop Silva thanked God “for all of you public officials who are here with us today to join in prayer and worship. You are hereby affirming what our ancestors knew very well must be the basis of all our common living, acknowledging before all that God is our maker.”

Clerics raise their hands in blessing over the public servants at the annual diocesan Red Mass Jan. 16 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. (HCH photo | Jennifer Rector)

Divine law as foundation

The bishop told the lawmakers that secular law should have divine law as its foundation.

“We can only thrive in liberty and justice when we conform ourselves with the inner law that God has placed in every human heart,” he said.

“How scary it is when others go their own way without any reference to the ultimate one, whose laws are our freedom,” the bishop said. “How blessed it is when we discern carefully so that the laws of our land will all correspond to the law of the God who made us, sustains us, and loves us always.”

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The Mass, celebrated during the week of the opening of the state legislature, was sparsely attended this year, with only six priests and eight deacons, and about a third of the general public’s pews empty. Royal Hawaiian orders, who attend yearly, were well represented with about two dozen men and women dressed in black and wearing red and yellow capes and feather lei.

Members of royal Hawaiian societies attend the Diocese of Honolulu’s annual Red Mass, Jan. 16 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. (HCH photo | Jennifer Rector)

Also in attendance were members of the Equestrian Order of the Most Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and the Knights of Columbus.

The civic leaders who attended included Gov. Josh Green and Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke; state representatives Henry Aquino, Lauren Matsumoto and David Tarnas; state senators Brandon Elefante and Mike Gabbard; and Honolulu city councilman Calvin Say.

Also present were Anton Krucky from the Department of Community Services, Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Keoni Souza, circuit court  Judge Catherine Remigio and former state representative Marcus Oshiro.

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Gov. Green, who was attending the Red Mass for the first time as governor, said he has been to the Red Mass “many times.”

“I try to come every year,” he told the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “I have just a lot of dear friends that are in the Christian Church, including my mother. And in spite of the fact that I’m Jewish it is very fortifying to kind of show that we’re together.”

“And for me, it helps guide me as I govern, because then I get people’s perspectives who I care about.”

At the end of the Mass, Bishop Silva invited the civic leaders to stand for a blessing from himself, the priests, deacons and Protestant ministers. With palms extended, he prayed that the Holy Spirit descend on them and give them the grace “to discharge your duties with honesty and ability.”





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Suspect arrested in attempted armed robbery on North Shore

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Suspect arrested in attempted armed robbery on North Shore


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Police have arrested a suspect in a violent attempted robbery on Oahu’s North Shore. Another suspect still has not been located.

Police said the two men approached another man in Mokuleia Friday night. One of the men allegedly assaulted the victim while the other one threatened him with a handgun.

According to police records, the suspects ran off when the victim called police.

Officers later identified one of the suspects as a 50-year-old man. He was arrested Tuesday and faces possible charges of robbery in the first degree.

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Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today

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Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today






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Hawaii displays historic photos of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing flower lei during Selma march

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Hawaii displays historic photos of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing flower lei during Selma march


HONOLULU — Photographs of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. adorned with flower lei from Hawaii residents who traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join him on a pivotal Civil Rights march went on public display Tuesday in the state Capitol in Honolulu.

The Selma-to-Montgomery marches galvanized passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which did away with most barriers such as poll taxes and other forms of voter discrimination targeting Black Americans in the Deep South.

A delegation of five people brought dozens of flower lei with them from Hawaii to Alabama in March 1965. Images of King wearing lei, garlands that are synonymous with Hawaiian culture, have been previously published — but most of the photos displayed in Hawaii’s new exhibit have never been seen before. Some photos have subtle variations, while others include figures who may have been deemed unimportant at the time. The exhibit runs through July 7.

One of the lei-bearers was Charles Campbell, a high school teacher and chairman of the Hawaii Civil Rights Conference, who a March 20, 1965 article in The Honolulu Advertiser quoted as saying: “Selma has the capability of becoming a real sore that could affect the entire nation.”

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King was photographed wearing lei about two weeks after the event known as Bloody Sunday when state troopers violently attacked Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965.

The photos were taken by Civil Rights photographer Matt Herron, whose widow donated them to Hawaii’s Department of Accounting and General Services for the state’s archives.

After the photos were unveiled, Steven Springel stared at a photo of his mother, Nona Ferdon, who was a divorced mother of two children and a graduate student when she traveled to Selma.

This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Charles Campbell, who traveled to Alabama for the march from Selma to Montgomery, placing a lei on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Brown Chapel AME in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron

Springel remembers he was just about to turn 7 and only realized as an adult how important her trip was. Growing up in Hawaii, “we never experienced segregation or racial inequality,” he said of his and his sister’s childhood. Ferdon died in 2021.

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The exhibit, part of Hawaii’s programming to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, is a reminder people from the Aloha State participated in an important event in history, said Keith Regan, who oversees the department as the state’s comptroller and presided over the photo unveiling as acting governor while Gov. Josh Green is out of state.

The small delegation traveled thousands of miles “to be a part of the Civil Rights movement, to show ‘aloha’ to the world that Hawaii was there holding hands with our fellow brothers and sisters to ensure equality and justice were heard throughout the nation,” he said.

The Hawaii members also wore lei during first day of the 50-mile (80.46-kilometer) march. Mothers of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu strung together fragrant plumeria plucked from church grounds to assemble the lei.

This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Nona Ferdon, a...

This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Nona Ferdon, a graduate student who accompanied the Hawaii delegation that traveled to Alabama in 1965 for the march for voting rights, attends the march in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron

Giving lei, a word that is both singular and plural in the Hawaiian language, continues to be a way to share the “aloha” spirit. People in Hawaii give and receive lei for all kinds of reasons, including to celebrate birthdays and promotions, or to show appreciation or recognition.

Tomi Knaefler, who had traveled with the delegation as a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, planned to attend Tuesday’s news conference. But at 96 years old, she wasn’t feeling up to it, said her daughter, Pamela MacDonald, who did attend.

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MacDonald said she was 14 when her mother went on the assignment, “the one that she holds dearest to her heart.”

The exhibit comes at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2026 term, which included a ruling gutting the remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of partisan gerrymandering in states in the South and endangering generations of gains in Black political representation.



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