Alencastre's personal mission included continuing to expand the number of schools and parish churches in the Islands (and to renovate the existing ones) and to build a seminary to form vowed religious locally to the priesthood. This came to fruition with the building of St. Stephen's Seminary, named in honor of the Bishop's own patron saint, which is still operational. The bishop was also partly responsible for the increase in the variety of religious orders in Hawai‘i, inviting such groups as the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet to help spread of Catholicism in the Hawaiian Islands.