The Catholic Church of the Caroline Islands lost its former leader when Bishop Amando Samo, retired head of the diocese, passed away on August 7, 2021.

Amando Samo was a proud Mortlockese, born in Moch, who knew what it was like to be an outsider. First, he moved to the Chuuk Lagoon, where he graduated from Chuuk High School. But that was just the beginning. Then it was off to Hawaii for seminary, where he would tell us that often, after a day’s classes and interactions with his fellow seminarians, he would flee to his room where he would dream of his home island. Perhaps it was this early experience that made him sympathetic and unfailingly kind to the American Jesuits like myself, who knew that we would always be outsiders, however much we considered the islands our adopted home.

Ah, the good old days! When the pews were filled at Sunday mass. When the stores were closed out of respect for the commandment to keep holy the Lord’s Day. When we all knew clearly what was a sin and what was not. When the church music was commanding and the liturgy mysterious but devotional. Where did it all go?

We’ve all heard those laments for the church of the past—that is, the church of the 1940s and 1950s, before all the changes began to strip away the old features that many of us found so comforting.