Move would split up St. Francis sisters

Nine of 24 retired St. Francis nuns are too medically fragile for the forced relocation in the works to a Pearl City retirement home from their Manoa convent, says Sister Alicia Damien Lau, a health care consultant and longtime nurse.

“This would mean that our sisters will not be together and, most likely, be sent to different nursing homes on the island,” Lau said. “We need to try to work with our congregation (leadership) and try to make them see the move was never an option.”

The decision to vacate the four-story convent neighboring the Saint Francis School campus within a few months was made by the leadership team of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, which is based in Syracuse, N.Y.

When the move was announced last week, Rochelle Cassella, a spokeswoman for the leadership office, said the decision was part of a nationwide “sustainability” plan. The convent building, which houses its own infirmary, chapel, large dining room, library and more than enough private rooms for the retired sisters, is “bigger than we need,” Cassella said.

However, Lau said The Plaza at Pearl City can accept only individuals who can care for themselves independently or might need minimal help. Six of the two dozen nuns already require a higher, intermediate care facility level of care, and three more will soon need it, she said. (ICF nursing in the convent is being provided by St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii staff.)

The retired nuns, in their 70s and 80s, were shocked and heartbroken by the relocation announcement, Lau said. Also upset are members of the Saint Francis School Alumni Association, which held a rally a few days later at the convent.

Phyllis Leimomi Stephenson, first vice president of the 4,000-member group, said this week that the alumni board now wants to buy the convent to keep the nuns in their home.

Lau said she was part of a committee that submitted a 20-page report in September to the leadership office. “We had pages of questions, which have not been totally answered,” she said. Even so, she said, a lease with the Pearl City facility was signed in November.

Lau and others urged the leaders to reconsider their decision when they came to the Manoa convent to announce the relocation, and provided additional data the team promised to study.

The convent took shape in Manoa Valley eight decades ago. At that time Hansen’s disease patients in Kalaupapa contributed $1,284 toward building the school and the convent to stand “as a monument commemorating the work of our beloved Mother Marianne and the Sisters of St. Francis,” said Lau, quoting from “Manoa: The Story of a Valley.”

Mother Marianne Cope, who served Hawaii’s Hansen’s disease patients for more than 30 years, was canonized a saint in 2012. Cope traveled from New York to Hawaii with six sisters in 1883 to care for outcast victims of the disease, also known as leprosy, when no other religious order would accept the desperate request by King David Kalakaua.

Following the relocation announcement, Stephenson, a 1955 graduate of Saint Francis School, said the alumni association has been “bombarded with people who want to send money” in support of the nuns, including many non-Catholics. Sixteen board members met Thursday to talk about matters such as how to raise money for the convent’s possible purchase, she said.

Donations can be mailed to Saint Francis School Alumni Association, P.O. Box 62035, Honolulu HI 96839. On the memo line, write “Save the Convent.”

Email Carol Caspillo, president, at caroldean42@gmail.com.