Mike Castori, New Bishop of Honolulu
Don’t we know him? Yes, indeed, was my response when I saw the recent notice on the appointment of Fr. Mike Castori, SJ, as the new bishop of Honolulu. Many years ago he was part of our team here in the islands.
The notice on the appointment mentioned Mike’s impressive string of academic degrees, his various teaching assignments and prison ministry in California, and even the Tongan community’s bestowal of his island middle name. But something significant was left out: his time with us in Micronesia.
Between his graduation from Harvard in 1982 and his entrance into the Jesuits in 1987, Mike served a few years as a lay volunteer on Guam at the minor seminary that had been set up in Yigo to prepare young men from the Caroline and Marshall Islands for the priesthood.
Mike was a mainstay of the staff during the two or three years he lived at St. Ignatius House of Studies. We all regarded him as bright but modest about his academic achievements. He may have been capable of translating Greek, but he was more than ready to help the young men learn the basics of English. He liked to read theological studies, but he was also prepared to join the seminarians on a hike through the hilly southern part of the island. The truth is that Mike Castori, as we knew him then, was ready for just about anything. He was unfailingly polite and welcoming—qualities that the seminarians might not have found in every American they encountered (one of whom is writing this piece).
Shortly after he finished his stint at the minor seminary and returned to the US, Mike became a Jesuit. He had spent much of the interval between college graduation and entrance into the Society in Guam and Micronesia. Did his experience in the islands have anything to do with his decision? Perhaps not so much, but at least it didn’t deter him from entering the Society.
A few years after his ordination in 1998, Mike returned to the islands to attend the ordination of Ken Urumolug, SJ, a friend of his from seminary days. Mike spent a little time revisiting the places he had first seen almost twenty years earlier. We’d like to think that those early memories remained special for him over that period. We hope they still are, as he takes on his new role as head of the church in our neighboring diocese.
Bishop Mike Castori! We wish him well, whatever the headgear he wears, since we honor our family ties: Once a brother always a brother.
