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As told by Archbishop Felixberto Flores, D. D. and printed by Guam, U.S.A. Publication Luggage in hand, the skinny young man in double-breasted Irish linen suit ambled nervously up the gangplank of the USS Gold Star in Apra Harbor. To the crusty sailors on the vessel’s poop deck on that sunny morning in 1939, the youngster was just another 25-buck steerage class civilian on a summer trip to the Orient. It was a reasonable assumption. For not even the young man himself, Felixberto C. Flores, could have imagined then that the journey ahead was to be the beginning of a pilgrimage to a future that he had not envisioned. His own plan was to enroll at the Ateneo de Manila, a college for men in the Philippine capital. His goal: a career in industrial technology. But in His mysterious way, Divine Providence had charted a different course for the would-be engineer - - one that was to lead him to the priesthood and, 31 years later, on May 17, 1970, to the bishop’s throne in the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral. Felixberto Flores was born on January 1 3, 1921. His parents lived in Agana in the two-story residence that still stands today at the corner of Hessler and 4th Street. The house is one of the few structures remaining in a once dense neighborhood in San Ignacio District where Felixberto and his younger brother, Ricardo, grew up. Years ago, its ground floor was remodeled and has served since then as the private retreat of the future priest who is now bishop. Felixberto’s father, Leon Flores, was a native of Laoag, Ilocos Norte, P.I. He was among the political exiles who were sent to Guam after the Spanish-American War. He later served under the Naval Government of Guam as registrar of lands then as island attorney before retiring to private law practice. Leon Flores was a widower with two young sons when he met, and later married, Ana Martinez Camacho of Agana. (Leon, Jr., who died a few years ago, also became Guam’s island attorney. His younger, Sergio, is now employed at the University of Guam.) At the time Felixberto’s birth, Agana had recovered from the influenza epidemic of 1918 which took hundreds of lives. The memory of World War I was fading into the pages of history. And the Christian faith, brought to the Marianas by Luis de Sanvitores and his Jesuit companions more than 250 years before, was flourishing under the brilliant leadership of Bishop Joaquin Olaiz, OFM Cap. (Leon Flores, Sr., became a close friend of the bishop’s and the attorney for the Church.) By then, also, American colonization had imposed many changes on the island. The Yankee influence added new cultural dimensions to an old way of life. The Spanish language was suppressed, and English took its place. Baseball, volleyball, tennis, boxing, were favorite sports. Tin Pan Alley brought new sounds of music: ‘Barney Google” and “Yes We Have No Bananas” were among the tune hits of the year. An exciting contest was in progress to select the Queen of the Guam Fair of 1921. The decades of the 1920’s the 1930’s in Guam w ere periods of peace and economic sufficiency. Although affluence was the privilege of a few entrepreneurs, there were no beggars at street corners. Felixberto and his contemporaries enjoyed an era of wholesome living that was devoted only to growing up, going to school, helping with family chores, and having fun. “Fun” then could be parties, the movies, the concert in the park; it would be a game of sports, swimming at the beach, or a bicycle r ace around town. It was this simple island life Felixberto, knew as a child and as a teenager; too simple and innocent, perhaps, to have magnified any special qualities in him which might have suggested that the Holy Spirit had marked him for the company of Christ. Felixberto was not even an altar boy; and though he was fond of music (he took violin lessons under master musician Ramon M. Sablan), he did not join Father Xavier’s reknown Cathedral boy’s choir. It could have been his Guardian Angel who kept him apart from the elite groups. A serious youth and not given in to spontaneous horse play, Felixberto would have been routed by the acolytes and Gregorian music harmonizers who were, more often than not, distinguished for their pranks rather than for their piety. ( A Capuchin brother was said to have returned to S pain a beaten man after spending much of his mission life dodging sling gun pellets that were made from candle wax. And there was a rumor that Father Xavier, noted for his paternal patience, once splintered his knuckles on the scalp of a choir boy who jazzed up the Agnus Dei.) At school, Felixberto was a model student. He completed both his elementary and secondary education at the Guam Institute, a private school in Agana, graduating in 1938 as valedictorian of his class. In that class also was his cousin, Cristobal C. Duenas, who was to become the first Guamanian judge of the District Court of Guam. (Four years earlier, incidentally, the Guam Recorder noted under Guam Institute News that “Jose Ada Guerrero, a boy from Saipan, was advanced to second grade.” Jose is now a monsignor and secretary to the bishop.) A large, white stone statue of Our Lady in the sunbathed quadrangle of the Ateneo de Manila’s main building caught the eyes of Felixberto Flores as he crossed the foyer. Moments later, the ex-passenger from the USS Gold Star was panting up the long, winding stairway with his luggage to the freshman dormitory on the top floor of the three-story concrete building. The dormitory resembled a hospital ward: well-ventilated and immaculately clean. Felixberto was one of the early arrivals, and he was soon being welcomed by a white-cassocked Jesuit scholastic who introduced himself as Martin J. Casey, prefect of boarders (a sort of turnkey in loco parentis). Felixberto quickly discovered that although the Ateneo excelled in liberal arts education, the life of a freshman boarder there was neither artful nor liberal. He was assigned to a four-poster bed with a framed woven mat (no springs or mattress since the Ratio Studiorum forbids such excessive luxuries), and was given direction on how to locate the shower stalls. A laundry number was tagged to his washable belongings, and it was subtly suggested that he should be neat at all times. Strict rules of discipline were explained in catch-all terms, some in archaic Latin, or so it seemed. With well-premised syllogisms, penalties were emphasized, especially for felonious offenses such as missing daily Mass and violating curfew regulations. To protect the young freshman from himself, fat cash assets were surrendered, redeemable in petty portions. (New-comers were also warned, in low whispers, not to bird-whistle back at the bobby-soxers of the Assumption College for Girls on the other side of the ten-foot campus wall.) Felixberto was thus introduced to an approximation of seminary life and which was to be more purposeful a year later. But he was undismayed by the new experience. He studied hard, probing the mysteries of the sciences, taking heavy doses of the humanities, and examining the intricacies of Catholic doctrine and dogma. His determination paid off: he completed the freshman year with high honors. Felixberto’s behavior was impeccable; the sharp-eyed dean of discipline, whose specialty was taming freshman students, gave him up as a prospect. If Felixberto ever whistled a tune, it was probably “Mother Machree,” the American Jesuits’ national anthem in the missions. So when he disclosed to friends that he was leaving for San Jose Seminary, the only element of expressed surprise was that the Sons of Loyola evidently failed to snare him into the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits tried hard enough. Felixberto was invited to visit the Society’s House of Novices which, among other things, boasted a swimming pool. (“San Jose doesn’t have one,” a novice whispered.) The truth was that Felixberto wanted to join the prestigious teaching Order. His decision in favor of the secular priesthood was dedicated by circumstances: there were no Jesuits in Guam, and he wanted to return to serve his people. |
Nevertheless, the Jesuit Fathers were to continue to be his mentors for a few years more. San Jose Seminary, like the Ateneo de Manila, was under the jurisdiction of the Society’s Maryland-New York Province. While a student at the Ateneo, Felixberto frequently spent Sunday afternoons at San Jose, visiting with two Guamanian seminatians - Oscar L. Calvo, now a monsignor, and Jose A. Manibusan, who was ordained in war-time Manila and died there in 1945 after a prolonged illness. But when the massive, ornately-carved doors of San Jose opened to receive him as a seminarian in the summer of 1940, Felixberto was acutely conscious for the first time of the cloister’s quiet and austere atmosphere. The orderliness of the place, its isolation from mundane neighborhoods and the gentle serenity that was everywhere impressed him. It was a world apart from the downtown, traffic-tortured life in Manila. Felixberto plunged into the studies for the priesthood with even greater zeal and resolved than for technology. His goal had changed, but his ambitious nature was undiluted by the realization that the journey he was undertaking would be a longer one than he had planned in 1939. It was also to be more eventful. On December 8, 1941, World War II exploded in the Pacific, and the Philippines fell into enemy hands. Classes at San Jose were disrupted, but eventually allowed to resume. Early in 1945, however, Felixberto was among the thousands of Americans, including members of the religious orders, who were interned at the Santo Tomas University concentration camp. But God’s plan for Felixberto was immutable. The making of another Guamanian priest had begun and it was to be accomplished four years later and ten thousand miles away at St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts, in the archdiocese of Richard Cardinal Cushing from whom Felixberto was to receive minor orders in 1948. Guam was, to say the least, a disaster area when Felixberto C. Flores returned home on an evacuation plane from Manila in mid-summer in 1945. Agana, the city of his birth, had disappeared. The historic Cathedral of Dulce Nombre de Maria, an old landmark of the faith, was gone; a humble house of worship built with salvaged lumber and tin, stood in its place. It was in this “camarin” of Our Lady of Guam where Felilxberto was to receive Holy Orders and celebrate his first Mass. But Felixberto’s reunion with his family and friends was a joyous one, except for a note of sadness over the death of his father the year before. It was, unfortunately, a brief visit. On August 6, 1945, the future priest was ready to leave again. He boarded a military plane for his trip to the United States, arriving in Boston on September 20, 1945. One of a number of stops he made en route to his destination was New York City, where he attended the consecration in St. Patrick’s Cathedral of the bishop who was to ordain him four years later – Apollinaris William Baumgartner, OFM Cap., of College Point, New York. The imposing brick-and-stone building of St. John’s Seminary in suburban Brighton with its ivy-covered walls and huge dome; the tall ancient elms “lifting” their “leafy arms to pray; the squirrels popping out from everywhere: these were a far cry from the tropical ambiance that Felixberto had known all his life. His thoughts drifted back to 1939, when he set out to become an industrial engineer. He had a dream then to go to America for graduate studies at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And there he was that autumn day in 1945 at St. John’s Seminary just across the Charles River from MIT in Cambridge. (“There but for the grace of God . . . “) Conducted by secular clergy (Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edward G. Murray was rector), St. John’s had, among Felixberto’s new classmates, a familiar rign that reminded him of his past association with the Jesuit Fathers: such names as O’Brien, McGowan, Kelley, Fitzgerald. None in that class could have guessed that 25 years later one of them would “make bishop.” The seasons went by swiftly at St. John’s, and all were fruitful and happy ones for Felixberto. Studies in philosophy and theology demanded much of him, but he found time to sing with the seminary choir and to play the violin with the school’s string orchestra. In the summer of 1947, he was far-sighted enough to prepare for one of h is prospective assignments as a priest, that of superintendent of Catholic Schools. He enrolled in the educational administration program at Fordham University, New York, returning in later summers after his ordination to earn the master’s degree. (A sidebar is of passing interest here: On June 11, 1947, a few days before Felixberto arrived at Fordham, a Jesuit scholastic named Martin J. Nelan received the A.A. degree from the University; he had served his teaching assignment at Fordham Prep on the same campus in 1946. A day earlier, on June 10, Fordham’s first Guamanian alumnus, Alex C. Flores, was conferred the A.B. degree. The two Flores cousins met the future Jesuit coadjutor bishop of the Caroline and Marshall islands for the first time 22 years later– in Guam.) Felixberto returned home in the summer of 1948 and was ordained subdeacon and deacon by Bishop Baumgartner. He was 27 and on the threshold of the priesthood. The next year at St. John’s, Felixberto began counting the months, the weeks, the days that remained of the long journey that Divine Providence had charted for him in 1939. “Thou are a priest forever . . . . “ Rev. Mr. Felixberto C. Flores heard these words from an ancient rite addressed to him by the Most Rev. Apollilnaris Baumgartner on the morning of April 30, 1949. It was thrilling, jubilant moment for the new priest and for hundreds of relatives and friends who witnessed his ordination in the Agana Cathedral. The following morning, May 1,
Father Flores celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the first time, and
solemnly repeated Christ’s own words at the Last Supper: “Hoc est enim Corpus meum. Hic Est enim Calix Sanguinis Mei . . .” For the next twenty years, Father Flores served the Church in various capacities, among them as chancellor of the vicariate, diocesan consultor, rector of the Cathedral, and superintendent of Catholic Schools. In non-ecclesiastical activities, he was legislative chaplain, a member of the Guam Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees and of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Besides his pastoral assignments, Father Flores was associate editor of the Catholic weekly, Umatuna Si Yuus, until last year when the pressure of diocesan responsibilities compelled him to turn over the weekly to other hands. The Umatuna carried his Chamorro language column and his Chamorro translations of church history in the Marianas. He was also the newscaster on the local Catholic program, and his resonant voice became a familiar one to Sunday morning listeners. Two personal tragedies came into Father Flores’ life during the first ten years of his priesthood. On November 12, 1953, his brother, Ricardo, died of a heart ailment at Mount Carmel Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. Ricardo was then an intern in surgery there after graduating “cum laude” from the University of Michigan School of Medicine in Ann Arbor. Six years later, on July 23, 1959, his mother passed away after a brief illness. For his service to the Church in Guam, Father Flores was honored by two popes. A few days before the tenth anniversary of his ordination, on April 19, 1959, he was elevated to the rank of papal chamberlain by John XXIII. On August 10, 1963, Pope Paul VI named him a domestic prelate. Father Flores was among the first audience to be received by the new pontiff who w as crowned in June, 1963. Meanwhile, the staggering task of administering the affaires of vicariate was steadily taking its toll on Bishop Baumgartner whose failing health worsened with his a dvancing years. The bishop had labored hard since his arrival in Guam in 1946. He found the postwar island in ruins; many church buildings had to be rebuilt. A great deal of his rehabilitation program had been accomplished when Typhoon Karen’s crushing blows struck Guam on November 11, 1962. The Church suffered major losses, and Bishop Baumgartner was again faced with the difficult situation after sixteen years of monumental accomplishments. Although he rallied repeatedly from a serious heart condition, it soon became evident that the heaven burden of his office should be shouldered by a younger man. On December 9, 1968, the bishop’s authority and responsibilities were transferred to Archbishop George Hamilton Pearce of Fiji, who was named apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Agana. The archbishop’s active tenure in that capacity was a short one, however. On June 13, 1969, soon after his month-and-a-half-long visitation here, Archbishop Pearce delegated his function and powers to Monsignor Flores. Speculation that the monsignor would eventually be named bishop b ecame widespread. On February 27, 1970 (three weeks following his return to Guam from New York where he attended the consecration of Bishop Martin J. Neylon, S.J., on February 2, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral), Monsignor Flores was summoned to a conference in Washington D.C. by Archbishop Luigi Raimundi, apostolic delegate to the United States. He returned from that meeting on March 1. Eighteen days later, on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, news of his appointment as Titular Bishop of Stonj, Dalmatia (he retained his title as apostolic administrator), was announced by the Chancery Office in a special bulletin. The announcement noted: “The dream and the
crowning achievement of a missionary order and a missionary bishop has come
true in the appointment of Bishop-elect Flores as the first Chamorro bishop.” Ecce Sacerdos magnos. |
