GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Members of the Hawaiian community presented the bishop's miter as the Most Rev. Clarence "Larry" Silva was ordained bishop of Honolulu in ceremonies Thursday evening at the Neal Blaisdell Center.

Sideshows lent
drama to ordination

The Blaisdell Center stage was wide and deep enough to hold a whole pride of bishops and a bevy of other robed folks, masters of ceremony escorting people to and fro, and acolytes fetching and carrying things.

The music was grand, 200 people from various parish choirs under the baton of Calvin Liu. The tropical flower arrangements were tall towers of color. There was lots of space on runway and stage to showcase chanter and kumu John Keola Lake and his halau in the Hawaiian prelude, and later a parade of brightly costumed people from a dozen ethnic groups bearing interesting gifts.

From floor seats or rafters, people could see and hear the whole extravaganza, no need for big-screen close-ups. It was just the colorful pageant that Catholics and the curious have come to expect after the recent televised grandiose funeral and papal installation in Rome.

But it was some of the little things that were worth remembering.

Planners clearly made an effort to bring women into the picture amid the all-male clergy. Karla Kippen of the Oakland diocese, where Silva served, did a scriptural reading. Chaminade University professor Regina Pfeiffer and Sister Helene Wood, head of the diocesan Office of Worship, were among the ministers of ceremony. Many of the acolytes were women and girls.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Standing before the Most Rev. William Levada, right, the Most Rev. Clarence "Larry" Silva was presented with a staff Thursday evening as he was ordained bishop of Honolulu.

There were robed women in the audience, too, from Protestant denominations that decades ago went through the epiphany of recognizing that women have the same brains and spirit that God gave men. It's the painful decision that the Catholic Church has not even begun to address. In the front row were the Rev. Barbara Ripple, a Methodist minister whose former position as Hawaii district superintendent carried authority equivalent to a bishop, and the Rev. Alison Dingley, who was one of the first female priests to be ordained in the Episcopal Church back in 1978. Also in the interfaith crowd was the Rev. Ruth Peterson, an Oahu Lutheran pastor; the Rev. Consorcia Sanchez, a Methodist minister; and the Rev. Jana Johnson, a Presbyterian minister on the Big Island.

Johnson was there with her husband, the Rev. Anthony Litwinski, an Episcopal priest who came as Bishop Richard Chang's representative. He is a former Catholic priest who turned to the Episcopal Church because it permits clergy to marry, another painful decision that is not on the Catholic agenda.

There were representatives from other Protestant denominations, the Greek Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox churches and Buddhist sects who were invited to join in the entrance procession and sat together as an interfaith presence. There have been times, whole centuries of time, when that sort of ecumenical collegiality was impossible to imagine.

About 140 Catholic priests sat together in a bloc of seats, a sight for Catholics' sore eyes in a time when their numbers are dwindling. However, at least half of the clerics would return to their Oakland diocese and other mainland parishes. There were a lot of gray heads above the priests' robes, and no bank of seats filled by seminarians.

Another little story from the sidelines is that of Mabel Neves, who leaned forward in her front-row seat for most of the unfolding drama, of which her nephew Larry was the central character. "I'm thinking of my sister. I know she's here with us tonight," said a tearful Neves before the ceremony. She is the sister of the bishop's late mother, Catherine Alves Silva, and the last survivor of the "older" generation. "It's because of my sister's strong faith that Larry is here today."

Among the symbols of office that Silva put on was a pastoral ring, gold with a hematite gemstone. Compared with the valuable gems that some rings hold, it is a modest adornment. But it is special to Silva, and that's a story he likes to tell. Kevin and Mary Alice Self of Oakland presented it formally during the ceremony, but actually, Kevin gave it to his former pastor years ago. The ring once belonged to Self's father, and when the older man died, Silva helped the Self family through the grieving process. In the ensuing years, the priest introduced Self to his wife and married the couple, who now have three children.

"He gave me his father's ring," said Silva, who told the story in an earlier interview. Officially, the ring symbolizes the bishop's fidelity to the church, the "bride of God." For the bishop it's also a token of a long-lasting friendship, one of the little sidebars to the big show in the arena.