Transitions – Where’s Fran?

Too Late for the Party?

Many years ago I was invited to a party at the home of an acquaintance who lived out a ways on the southern shore of Long Island. It wasn’t just another party, but something special in a home that was more than just a house. Let’s call it a mansion. The locale was not just any old suburban town, but it was like one of the Hamptons—a plush community that could have been the setting for “The Great Gatsby.” I didn’t know the hosts too well, but I was looking forward to the party for other reasons, as you might suspect.

Dan and I first met in 1955 at Canisius High School where I was a senior and he a newly assigned Jesuit scholastic starting his teaching stint before ordination. We were surprised to find out that he was a veteran—who had lost one of his lungs in service, for that matter. None of us ever imagined Dan in military uniform. To us he was an unimposing, kindly figure who seemed temperamentally well-suited to be moderator of the poster club and the prefect of the school’s book store. We liked his friendly smile and wished him well, but no one regarded him as a contender for the faculty Wall of Fame. Dan just wasn’t the kind of heroic figure that we Crusaders took to heart as our champions.

On April 12, very early in the morning, I left Guam to attend the funeral of of Elsa Veloso, the “co-founder of MicSem” and a dear friend over the thirty years of her work with us. After seven hours at the airport in Manila, I caught a flight to Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao. There I was met by my old friends Danny and Arlene Dumantay, along with Elsa’s niece Melba. It was dinner time and we all had so much catching up to do that we decided to spend the night in the city and make the three-hour drive to Kinoguitan, Elsa’s hometown, the next day.

She arrived at Micronesian Seminar in 1977 while in her mid-thirties—a country girl from Mindanao who had spent the last several years as a classroom teacher. Elsa had never traveled abroad before. She was demure, even shy—a “church-mouse” is what some of us called her. By the end of her 30 years at MicSem, however, no one would have described her as that any longer.

When JP (aka Fr. John Paul) passed away on July 12 after some days on life support, some began to wonder whether the church in Palau was under a curse. JP’s passing was just the latest in a series of deaths among Palauan clergy and religious. Wayne Tkel and Juan Ngiraibuuch had also left us in the past year or two.

It was in August 1963, shortly after my arrival to begin teaching at Xavier, that I met first met Nick, along with John Rulmal, on the Gunner’s Knot. Nick was one of several Yapese students who had boarded at Yap for the voyage to Chuuk. Air flights were few and planes were small in those days. Over the next four or five days as we crept eastward, Nick began exposing me to the new world of Micronesia. It began with demonstrating how monkeymen were carved from wood, and it went on to other things—how spirits of the dead take possession of people, and why island women once had to stay in special huts during their menstrual period. By the end of the trip, we were good friends. Nick was not just a personal mentor on island life, but one of my very first Micronesian friends.

The photo of Juan that is unforgettable, at least for me, is the 1987 shot of him seated between his two fellow novices and their novice director, Fr. Felix Yaoch. in the rectory in Palau. They all have beaming smiles on their faces, as well they should. They were making history in an island group that had long been a mission served by other countries. Now Micronesia had its own Jesuit novitiate, its own Palauan novice master, and three island seminarians. It was a key event on the path toward the truly Micronesian church that we had all hoped for.

We were all shocked at the news that Bill Rakowicz, a long-time missionary in the islands, died on Dec 13 at the age of 73. He was working in a Jesuit retreat house in Maryland at the time.

Francis X. Hezel, SJ, is a Jesuit priest who has lived and worked in Micronesia since 1963. At different times he has served as high school teacher, school administrator, pastor, and regional superior to the Jesuits of Micronesia. He spent thirty years directing the Micronesian Seminar, a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Pohnpei, Micronesia.

He has written and spoken widely about social change and its impact on island societies. He has also written several books on Micronesian history, including The First Taint of Civilization, Strangers in Their Own Land, and The New Shape of Old Island Cultures. His most recent book, Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture, is available through University of Hawaii Press.