Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

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Clan balances law and faith

The Gierlach family patriarch is a defense lawyer-turned-priest

The Gierlach family seems to live a life dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter. If you were going to pitch their story to a producer in one minute or less it might go like this: "OK, the dad is a well-known, high-powered Honolulu attorney who represents everybody from major criminals to disgruntled police officers, but, get this, he's also an ordained priest who is vicar to a little seaside church in the country. Mom's a pretty Tahitian flight attendant and dress designer who speaks French and surfs and sometimes skips church if the waves are good. Oh yeah, she's also a grandmother. They have a bunch of children ranging in age from 6 to 25 and the littlest one, Joseph, is a cute little scamp who takes his skateboard to church."

I personally think it would make a heck of a show and I expect royalties if anyone turns David and Ida Gierlach's life into a TV series. I'm not sure what the show would be called. "Father Lawyer Knows Best?" "Everybody Loves Lawyer-Priests?" Well, the details can be worked out later.

In full disclosure, I admit that I've known David Gierlach for many years and attend, though not religiously, his Episcopal church, St. John's By-the-Sea in Kahaluu. But I got to know him when I covered the waterfront, so to speak, as a court and crime reporter. I knew him mainly as an attorney who had such big-name clients as former Bishop Estate trustee Lokelani Lindsey.

What I didn't know was that law was his second career choice. His initial goal had been to become a priest. He went to Roman Catholic seminary, got his master's degree in whatever you need a degree in to become a Catholic priest and was in Bolivia learning to speak Spanish when he realized this particular calling wasn't calling to him anymore.

"They were serious about celibacy," he jokes. "I didn't feel called to a single life."

So he came to Hawaii, where in 1989 he graduated from the University of Hawaii Law School and became a lawyer generally in the thick of what we in the news media call "high-profile cases."

But he found himself drawn back to the church, finally becoming ordained and taking over St. John's last year.

"From the first day, he told me he wanted to become a priest," says his wife, Ida, the surfing-flight attendant-dress designer. She says his dual callings haven't been a problem, but concedes that the wife of a lawyer-priest doesn't win many family arguments. Dad's got all the bases covered. They both have children from previous marriages, grown now, as well as Teatuahere, 7 and Joseph, 6. And there's the 4-year-old granddaughter, Teraura. And you might as well throw in the whole extended family -- the congregation of St. John's.

"The kids love going to church," Ida says. I can attest to that. On Mother's Day, Joseph actually carried his skateboard to the altar rail when the Sunday School class sang a touching tribute to motherhood. Ida confesses that she misses church sometimes when the waves are good.

Father David confesses he get some ribbing from lawyers and judges.

"It's the big joke," he says. "How can you possibly be a lawyer and a priest? Half in hell and half in heaven?"

But the professions aren't that dissimilar, he says.

"The law, at its best, tries to help people solve problems in a nonviolent way. I don't see anything different in that than what my faith calls me to do."

Good point. Oh, and judges and priests both do weddings.