Catholicism | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 27, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Curé d’Ars

It was during a Mass celebrated secretly behind barred doors by an anti-Revolution priest in a home near Écully, close to his native parish, that Jean-Baptiste-Marie (John) Vianney received his First Communion (at the age of 13,) which strengthened him in his inmost desire.

“If I were a priest I could win many souls for God,” he said to himself and to his fond mother.

“I will be a priest,” he affirmed.

Vianney, the 4th of 6-children, was born on May 8th, 1786 at Dardilly, eight miles north-west of Lyons, in 1786. Almost as soon as he was able to walk, the child accompanied his parents into the fields where he tended the sheep and the cows. His peasant parents were among those who remained faithful Catholics during the revolution, giving hospitality to visiting priests.

Napoleon was fighting across Europe, but his success was paid for with torrents of French blood. More and yet more drafts had to be levied to fill the gaps made in his regiments by their very victories.

In 1806, young Vianney and others were summoned; two years went by, but in the autumn of 1809 he was summoned to join up, though as a Seminarist he was in reality exempt from conscription.

It would seem that his name was not on the official list of Church students supplied by the diocesan authorities. Someone had blundered. The recruiting officer would listen neither to expostulation nor to entreaty.

Young Vianney was destined for the armies in Spain. His parents tried to find a substitute. For the sum of 3,000 francs and a gratuity, a certain young man agreed to go in his stead but he withdrew at the last moment.

On October 26th Jean Baptiste entered the barracks at Lyons only to fall ill. From Lyons they sent him to a hospital at Roanne where the Nuns in charge nursed him back to a semblance of health. When, on January 6th, 1810, infantryman Vianney left the hospital, he found that his draft had set out long ago.

He was now considered a deserter so that his only care must be not to be discovered; he assumed the name Jerome Vincent.

He opened a school for the village children under that name. For a time, for the sake of greater security, he lived and slept in the shed attached to the farmhouse.

In 1810 an imperial decree granted an amnesty to all deserters of the years 1806 to 1810. Vianney was covered by the decree, so he returned home and to resume his studies. After overcoming his weakness in learning Latin, at the age of 29, on August 13, 1815, Vianney became a priest.

In 1818, Vianney was made Curé d’Ars (Parish Priest of Ars,) a village with a population of 200 not very far from Lyons.

He founded a sort of orphanage for destitute girls. It was called ‘The Providence’ and was the model of similar institutions established later all over France.

But the chief labor of the Vianney was the direction of souls. He had not been long at Ars when people began coming to him from other parishes, then from distant places, then from all parts of France, and finally from other countries.

As early as 1835, his bishop forbade him to attend the annual retreats of the diocesan clergy because of ‘the souls awaiting him yonder.’

During the last ten years of his life, he spent from sixteen to eighteen hours a day in the confessional.

One day he was hearing confessions in the sacristy. All of a sudden he came to the door and told one of the men who acted as ushers to call a lady at the back of the church, telling him how he could identify her. However, the man failed to find her.

‘Run quickly, she is now in front of such a house.’ The man did as he was told and found the lady who was going away, disappointed at not having spoken to Vianney.

At times he came out of the confessional and summoned certain persons from among the crowd and those so selected declared that only a divine instinct could have told him of their peculiar and pressing need.

His advice was sought by bishops, priests, religious, young men and women in doubt as to their vocation, sinners, persons in all sorts of difficulties and the sick.

In 1855, the number of pilgrims had reached twenty thousand a year. The most distinguished persons visited Ars for the purpose of seeing the holy curé and hearing his daily instruction.

Vianney became ill. In the afternoon of August 2, 1859, he received the Last Sacraments: ‘How good God is,’ he said; ‘when we can no longer go to Him, He comes to us.’

At 2 o’clock in the morning of August 4th, 1859, whilst a fearful thunderstorm burst over Ars, and whilst M. Monnin read these words of the “Commendation of a Soul”: ‘May the holy angels of God come to meet him and conduct him into the heavenly Jerusalem,’ the Curé d’Ars gave up his soul to God.

Miracles associated with Vianney are of three classes: first, the obtaining of money for his charities and food for his orphans; secondly, supernatural knowledge of the past and future; thirdly, healing the sick, especially children.

He was beatified in 1905, and in the same year on April 12th he was declared patron saint of the priests of France by Pius X. In 1929, four years after his canonization, Pope Pius XI declared him ‘patron saint of the priests of the whole world’.

Pope John Paul II said no less by repeating three times that ‘The Cure of Ars remains an outstanding and unparalleled model for all nations both of the accomplishment of the ministry and the holiness of the minister’.

‘Oh, how great a reality lies in the priest!’ Jean-Marie Vianney would exclaim, for he can give God to men and men to God ; he is the witness of the tenderness of the Father for each person and the artisan of salvation.

The Curé d’Ars, an elder brother in the priesthood, is the saint to whom every priest in the world can come in order to entrust his ministry or his priestly life to the Cure’s intercession. (Lots of information here is from St John Vianney.)

Several schools and parishes were formed and named for St John Vianney. One such is the Parish and school in Enchanted Lake, in Kailua, Oahu, established in 1962.

September 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

St. Augustine by-the-sea

At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the Hawaiian Islands during the late-eighteenth century, Waikīkī had long been a center of population and political power on Oʻahu. Starting back in the end of the fourteenth century, Waikīkī had become “the ruling seat of the chiefs of O’ahu,” including Kamehameha, who resided here after conquering Oʻahu in 1795.

In 1819, Kalanimōkū was the first Hawaiian Chief to be formally baptized a Catholic, aboard the French ship Uranie. “The captain and the clergyman asked (John) Young what Ka-lani-moku’s rank was, and upon being told that he was the chief counselor (Kuhina Nui) and a wise, kind, and careful man, they baptized him into the Catholic Church” (Kamakau). Shortly thereafter, Boki, Kalanimōkū’s brother (and Governor of Oʻahu,) was baptized.

In July 1827, three Sacred Hearts priests and three Sacred Hearts brothers from France arrived in Honolulu to begin the Hawaiian Catholic Mission. The beginnings of the Mission were difficult. They were neither welcomed by the royal government nor by the Protestants already in the Islands.

France, historically a Catholic nation, used its government representatives in Hawaiʻi to protest the mistreatment of Catholic Native Hawaiians. Captain Cyrille-Pierre Théodore Laplace, of the French Navy frigate “Artémise”, sailed into Honolulu Harbor in 1839 to convince the Hawaiian leadership to get along with the Catholics – and the French. Finally, the persecution ended in June and the kingdom granted religious freedom to all.

With Catholics now free to practice their faith, a small Catholic chapel was built in 1839 in Waikīkī “in the Hawaiian style,” likely consisting of posts and thatch on the beach near the present Kalākaua Avenue.

This chapel was re-built 15 years later (in 1854) at that beach location in Western-style wooden framing (from the lumber of shipwrecked ships.) The size of this chapel was about 20 feet by 40 feet, with a steeple.

Waikīkī continued to grow and improvements to the chapel were made later by putting in flooring, galvanized roofing, and lattice walls. This church site on the beach served its purpose for many years, until the site was exchanged for a piece of land on what is now ʻOhua Avenue.

The chapel was used primarily for devotions; parishioners still had to go to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) for Sunday Mass.

During the Spanish-American War, American soldiers were garrisoned at Kapiʻolani Park (at a temporary Camp McKinley – 1898-1907) and the Catholic soldiers wanted a regular Catholic Mass in Waikīkī, so permission was given for Mass every Sunday. A larger chapel was built to accommodate all the worshippers.

The soldiers left when the war ended, but by that time there was a growing Catholic community in Waikīkī. On August 28, 1901, a more permanent church with lattice-work walls reminiscent of the palm fronds of the first chapel in Waikīkī.

As Waikīkī grew, so did the church; it was expanded twice, in 1910 and then in 1925; but time, a growing population and termites took their toll and by the early-1960s a larger church was needed.

In 1962, the present church was blessed. Designed by local architect George McLaughlin, the design reflects hands folded in prayer. The 20-side stained glass windows depict 15-mysteries of the rosary, the arrival of the missionaries, the first lay catechists (Catholic teachers of the faith) in Hawaiʻi, Father Damien and the bishop receiving the current church.

Today, St Augustine-by-the-Sea Church sits within urban Honolulu at the eastern end of the Waikīkī resort area. It is surrounded by modem urban development and high-rise hotels.

St. Augustine by-the-sea has not undergone any major exterior renovations or improvements since its construction in 1962. The church recently published a Master Plan and Environmental Assessment for a new multi-purpose Parrish Hall, as well as other improvements.

St. Augustine features a small museum dedicated to the life and times of St. Damien of Molokaʻi. In 1863, his brother, who was to leave for the Hawaiian Islands, became ill and Damien took his place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864, and was ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) on May 21, 1864.

For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaiʻi. In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokaʻi, after volunteering for the assignment. He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics and churches, and some six hundred coffins. He died on April 15 1885, on Molokaʻi. (Lots of information and images from St. Augustine website and related reports.)

December 26, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Sisters of Charity

Appropriately, we read a lot about the good work of Father Damien and Mother Marianne (both, now Saints.) But we don’t seem to hear of the many others who worked with them in ministering to those in need.

Here, we look at only a few (some of the earliest Sisters that worked with Mother Marianne,) and the hard work and hardship they endured.

The first shipment of lepers landed at Kalawao (Kalaupapa) January 6, 1866, the beginning of segregation and banishment of lepers to the leper settlement.

Receiving and detention centers were established on Oʻahu. Kalihi Hospital was the first hospital for leprosy patients in Hawaiʻi opening in 1865. Kapiʻolani Home opened in Kalihi Kai in 1891 adjacent to the Kalihi Hospital and Receiving Station; Kalihi Plague Camp (1900-1912) and Meyers Street, Kalihi Uka (1912-1938.) (NPS)

In January 1883, Walter Gibson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Board of Health, appealed to Hermann Koeckemann, Bishop of Olba, head of the Catholic Mission in Hawai’i, to obtain Sisters of Charity from one of the many sisterhoods in the US to come and help care for leprous women and girls in the Islands.

Father Leonor Fouesnel, with a royal commission from King Kalākaua, was designated as agent to go on this mission. Landing in San Francisco and traveling East, Father Leonor petitioned more than fifty different sisterhoods before a favorable reply was obtained, from the Franciscan Convent of St Anthony at Syracuse, New York.

The reply to the King’s emissary was not made lightly, but only after a long, serious debate among the sisterhood. One of the prime supporters of this action was the Mother Superior, Mother Marianne Cope. (Greene; NPS)

“I am hungry for the work and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen Ones, whose privilege it will be, to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders… I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’” (Mother Marianne; NPS)

Mother Marianne consulted with all the sisters and, to her credit they felt free to voice their concerns. Responded one: “I am very honest with you. I am afraid. I have heard too much about these poor people. I heard also that there are no rules and regulations. That everyone does as he pleases.”

Another stated: “If it is not a suitable place for any woman how can it be for the Sisters.” (NPS) With calmness, good sense, firmness, and a kind heart she was able to get cooperation from all around her. Her religious life was a series of administrative appointments, culminating in her being placed in charge of missions in Hawai’i.

Only six sisters could be spared to go with Mother Marianne, who insisted that as superior of the convent it was her duty to go with the first group of sisters and help them get established. It was not the intent of the convent that she stay in Hawai’i permanently. (Greene; NPS)

On October 23, 1883, Mother Marianne and her companions set off for Hawai’i, arriving on November 9. These were: Sister M Bonaventure Caraher, Sister Crescentia Eilers, Sister Ludovica Gibbons, Sister M Rosalia McLaughlin, Sister Renata Nash and Sister Mary Antonella Murphy.

Three of the sisters and Mother Marianne went to work at the branch hospital for leprosy victims at Kaka’ako in Honolulu on January 11, 1884, and spent almost five years there. Three others were put in charge of the new hospital at Wailuku on the island of Maui.

“For us it is happiness to be able to comfort, in a measure, the poor exiles, and we rejoice that we are unworthy agents of our heavenly Father through whom He deigns to show His great love and mercy to the sufferers.” (Mother Marianne, 1884)

Queen Kapi‘olani had visited Kalaupapa in 1884 to learn how she could assist those who were diagnosed with leprosy and exiled there, and she raised the funds to build the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (KCC) She and others also recognized the need for a home for the non-infected children of the leprosy patients.

On November 9, 1885, the healthy girls living in Kalawao moved into Kapiʻolani Home on the grounds of the sisters’ convent at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

On April 22, 1885, a second group of sisters arrived from Syracuse as reinforcements. This included Sister Leopoldina Burns, Sister Carolina Hoffmann, Sister Martha Kaiser and Sister Benedicta Rodenmacher. Shortly after, Sister Antonia Brown, Sister M. Vincentia McCormick, Sister M. Irena Schorp and Sister Ephrem Schillinger. (More came later.)

News continually filtered back to Kaka’ako about conditions at the Moloka’i settlement. The children on the island were in desperate need of care and the venerable Father Damien himself had been diagnosed as having leprosy and obviously had few years left in which to continue his work.

Mother Marianne, however, was being kept busy in Honolulu all this time. At one point she had suggested to Walter Gibson that a home for children of leprous parents be built near the sisters’ residence in Honolulu. This establishment opened in November 1885 as the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (Green; NPS)

Then, Mother Marianne Cope and Sisters Leopoldina Burns and Vincentia McCormick of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sisters of Charity arrived on November 14, 1888. They managed the Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls and Women, which opened at Kalaupapa in 1888. (NPS)

Sister Leopoldina describes the place: “One could never imagine what a lonely barren place it was. Not a tree nor a shrub in the whole Settlement only in the churchyard there were a few poor little trees that were so bent and yellow by the continued sweep of the birning wind it would make one sad to look at them.” (Voices of Kaulapapa; SanDiego-gov)

While there was no cure for the residents of Molokai, the sisters tried to bring dignity to their lives. Before the sisters arrived, patients dressed in rags. The sisters gave the girls proper clothes and taught them embroidery, sewing and gardening. They also gave them music lessons.

Father Damien himself succumbed to leprosy on April 15, 1889. Upon the death of Damien, Mother Marianne agreed to also head the Boys Home at Kalawao. The Board of Health had quickly chosen her as Saint Damien’s successor and she was thus enabled to keep her promise to him to look after his boys.

A traveler on a steamer that later (May, 1889) brought Sisters Crescentia and Irene to Kalaupapa noted, “When I was pulled ashore one early morning there sat with me in the boat two sisters bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. One wept silently and I could not withhold myself from joining her.” (The Messenger)

The workload was extremely heavy in that Bishop Home alone provided shelter for 103 girls in 1893. There were times when the burden seemed overwhelming. In a moment of despair, Sister Leopoldina reflected, “How long Oh Lord must I see only those that are sick and covered with leprosy?” (Sister Leopoldina: NPS)

The Baldwin Home, which opened in May of 1894, replaced the Boys’ home built by Father Damien. Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of Saint Francis managed the Baldwin home until they turned over jurisdiction to Joseph Dutton and the Sacred Hearts Brothers in 1895.

While at Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne predicted that no Franciscan Sister would ever contract leprosy. Additionally she required her sisters use stringent hand washing and other sanitary procedures. No sister has ever contracted the disease. Mother Marianne died in the summer of 1918 at the age of 80.

Mother Marianne was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012, making her the first Franciscan woman to be canonized from North America and only the 11th American saint. Forevermore, she will be known as St Marianne Cope, with the title “beloved mother of outcasts.” (Lots of information here is from NPS and Hawaii Catholic Herald.)

Gibson with the Sisters of St. Francis and daughters of Hansen’s disease patients, at the Kakaako Branch Hospital-1886

Sr. M. Rosalia, Sr. M Martha, Sr M. Leopoldina, Sr. M Charles, Sr. M. Crescentia, and Mother Marianne rear-Walter Murray Gibson-1886

Mother Marianne Cope (in wheelchair) with other nuns and the women and girls of Bishop Home in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, shortly before her death in 1918.

Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth

Sisters (Mother Marianne center) and patients at the Bishop Home in Kalaupapa

Kakaako Branch Hospital-Patients’ Cottage-Hanley&Bushnell-1886

Beginnings of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony

Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai

Rebuilt-Kapiolani_Home

Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Girls and Women-Kalaupapa, Molokai-1900

Old Settlement at Kalawao

Mother_Marianne_Cope,_Kalaupapa,_1899

Malulani_Hospital-women’s_ward-(MauiNews)

Kapiolani_Home

Kalawao-Kalaupapa

Kalaupapa home for unprotected girls

Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls

Edward_Clifford_–_Damien_in_1888

September 15, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ahuimanu College

On July 7, 1827, the pioneer French Catholic mission arrived in Honolulu. It consisted of three priests of the Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; Father Alexis Bachelot, Abraham Armand and Patrick Short. They were supported by a half dozen other Frenchmen.

The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar (SS.CC.) (better known as the Congregation of Picpus) is a Roman Catholic religious institute of brothers, priests and nuns. (The letters following their names, SS.CC., are the Latin initials for Sacrorum Cordium, “of the Sacred Hearts”.)

Their first mass was celebrated a week later on Bastille Day, July 14, and a baptism was given on November 30, to a child of Don Francisco de Paula Marin.

In 1837, two other Catholic priests arrived (Rev Louis Maigret was one of them). However, the Hawaiian government forced them back onto a ship. Maigret sailed to Pohnpei in Micronesia to set up a mission there; he was the first missionary they had seen. He later departed for Valparaiso (Chile.)

American, British and French officials in Hawaii intervened and persuaded the king to allow the priests to return to shore. On June 17, 1839, King Kamehameha III issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics.

The King also donated land where the first permanent Catholic Church would be constructed; the Catholic mission was finally established on May 15, 1840 when the Vicar Apostolic of the Pacific arrived with three other priests – including Rev. Louis Maigret.

Father Maigret was appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands (now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.) They sought to expand the Catholic presence.

At the end of the year 1840, Maigret jotted down this balance sheet: Vicariate of Oceania: Catholics: 3,000; Heretics: 30,000 and Unbelievers: 100,000. (Charlot)

Maigret oversaw the construction of what would become his most lasting legacy, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, still standing and in use in downtown Honolulu. Maigret was officially ordained as a Bishop on November 28, 1847.

Maigret divided Oʻahu into missionary districts. Shortly after, the Windward coast of Oʻahu was dotted with chapels. The Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu was founded by the Catholic mission on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846.

“Outside the city, at Ahuimanu, Maigret has now a country retreat that he refers to by the Hawaiian word māla. It is a combination garden, orchard and kitchen garden.”

“The venerable bishop has built his own vineyard and planted his own orchard … His retreat in the mountain, his ‘garden in the air’ as he terms it, is a pleasant and profitable sight … with a small stone-walled cottage about fifteen feet by ten. When the pressure of events allows it, Maigret takes refuge there.” (Charlot)

“The situation of Ahuimanu is very fine. It is in a basin formed by volcanic action. The sea is in the foreground; and its background is a lofty mountain ridge, eight hundred feet high, which is a very wall, whose coping stones are ever in the clouds, and whose foot is buttressed by outreaching spurs, like the everlasting ramparts made by the hand of God.”

“The men of faith who claim that their church is founded on a Rock, have founded this establishment within a ‘munition of rocks,’ from whose fissures there gush forth sweet cool streams in refreshing bounty flowing like waters of life over a hungry land.”

“This ample irrigation feeds redundant taro patches, well burthened banana groves, well loaded peach orchards, producing the most delicious fruit we have eaten in those isles; also groves of mangoes, chirimoyas, rose apples, Tahitian wi, and other choice fruits of tropic lands.” (Nuhou, 7/15/1873)

One of its students was Jozef de Veuster; he was born in Tremeloo, Belgium, in 1840. Like his older brother Pamphile, Jozef studied to be a Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts.

Jozef arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy. Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of the schooling at the College of Ahuimanu.

Bishop Maigret ordained Jozef as Father Damien at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864. “Here I am a priest, dear parents, here I am a missionary in a corrupt, heretical, idolatrous country. How great my obligations are! How great my apostolic zeal must be!” (Damien to parents; Daws)

Early in June, 1864, Maigret appointed Damien to Puna on the east coast of the island of Hawai‘i; another new missionary, Clement Evrard, was appointed to Kohala-Hāmākua.

Damien learned the Hawaiian language (he had just previously learned English during his long journey to Hawai‘i). His Hawaiian was far from perfect, but he could manage to get by with it. Damien’s name became ‘Kamiano.’

Like most Catholic missionaries of that time, he saw his mission in intense competition with that of the Protestant ‘heretics,’ who did not kneel while praying and who distributed the local kalo (taro,) instead of bread for communion and even water instead of wine. (de Volder)

Shortly after arriving in Puna, in a letter to Pamphile, Damien wrote, “I regret not being a poet or a good writer so as to describe our new country to you.” Although he had not yet seen the active Kilauea volcano erupting, he added, “from what the other Fathers say it seems there is nothing like it in the world to give a correct idea of Hell.” (Daws)

A few months in Puna taught Damien at first-hand what he had heard in advance from the Maui missionaries: that life in the field was nothing like life as a novice in the religious order in Europe.

“Instead of a tranquil and withdrawn life, it is a question of getting used to traveling by land and sea, on horseback and on foot; instead of strictly observing silence, it is necessary to learn to speak several languages with all kinds of people …”

“… instead of being directed you have to direct others; and the hardest of all is to preserve, in the middle of a thousand miseries and vexations, the spirit of meditation and prayer.” (Damien in letter to father-general of the Sacred Hearts, 1862; Daws)

Father Clement Evard, his closest but distant neighbor, had an even more formidable area to cover: the double district of Kohala-Hāmākua, about a quarter of the Island. He was not as strong as Damien.

Damien carried his church on his back (a portable alter which he set up with four sticks pounded into the ground and a board balances on top with a cover cloth.)

His life was simple – with the help of the faithful, Damien began to do some small farming (keeping sheep pigs and chickens; bees for honey and wax for candle making; etc). “The calabash of poi is always full; there is also meat; water in quantity, coffee and bread sometimes, wine and beer never.” (Daws)

Eight months after they arrived in their respective districts, Damien and Clement discussed exchanging posts; in early 1865, Damien left Puna for Kohala-Hāmākua.

In 1873, Maigret assigned him to Molokai. Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi. In 2009, Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

The College of Ahuimanu changed locations and also changed its name a couple of times. In 1881, it was renamed “College of St. Louis” in honor of Bishop Maigret’s patron Saint, Louis IX. It was the forerunner for Chaminade College and St Louis High School.

April 12, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Catholicism in Hawaiʻi

The first church in Hawaiʻi was built by the New England Protestant missionaries who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1820. However, Western religious services had been held in the islands prior to that.

Some would suggest that Catholicism started in Hawaiʻi with the arrival of Don Francisco de Paula Marin (Manini) to the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.)

While Marin was reportedly a Spanish Catholic, he did live a polygamous life while in Hawaiʻi. Never-the-less, there are several reports of him baptizing Hawaiian chiefs and others (over three hundred) into the Catholic religion.

In 1819, Kalanimōkū was the first Hawaiian Chief to be formally baptized a Catholic, aboard the French ship Uranie. “The captain and the clergyman asked Young what Ka-lani-moku’s rank was …”

“… and upon being told that he was the chief counselor (kuhina nui) and a wise, kind, and careful man, they baptized him into the Catholic Church” (Kamakau). Shortly thereafter, Boki, Kalanimoku’s brother (and Governor of Oʻahu) was baptized.

It wasn’t until July 7, 1827, however, when the pioneer French Catholic mission arrived in Honolulu. It consisted of three priests of the Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; Father Alexis Bachelot, Abraham Armand and Patrick Short. They were supported by a half dozen other Frenchmen.

Their first mass was celebrated a week later on Bastille Day, July 14, and a baptism was given on November 30, to a child of Marin.

The American Protestant missionaries and the French Catholics did not get along.

The Congregationalists encouraged a policy preventing the establishment of a Catholic presence in Hawaiʻi. Catholic priests were forcibly expelled from the country in 1831. Native Hawaiian Catholics accused King Kamehameha III and his government of imprisoning, beating and torturing them.

Later that year, Commodore John Downes, of the American frigate Potomac, made a plea for freedom of religion, telling the Hawaiian court that civilized nations did not persecute people for their religion.

While his intervention brought about a brief let-up, the king continued to forbid the presence of Catholic priests.

Finally, on September 30, 1836, the captain of the French Navy ship La Bonté persuaded the king to allow a Catholic priest to disembark in Honolulu. The king restricted the priest’s ministry to foreign Catholics, forbidding him to work with Native Hawaiians.

On April 17, 1837, two other Catholic priests arrived. However, the Hawaiian government forced them back onto a ship on April 30. American, British and French officials in Hawaii intervened and persuaded the king to allow the priests to return to shore.

King Kamehameha III feared a French attack on his kingdom and on June 17, 1839 issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.

The King also donated land where the first permanent Catholic Church would be constructed, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace; the Catholic mission was finally established on May 15, 1840 when the Vicar Apostolic of the Pacific arrived with three other priests – one of whom, Rev. Louis Maigret, had been refused a landing at Honolulu in 1837.

On July 9, 1840, ground was broken for the foundation of the present Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, and schools and churches were erected on other islands to advance the mission.

At the end of the year 1840, Maigret jots down this balance sheet: Vicariate of Oceania: Catholics: 3,000; Heretics: 30,000 and Unbelievers: 100,000. (Charlot)

On August 15, 1843, the newly-finished cathedral of Honolulu was solemnly dedicated and 800 Catholics received Holy Communion.

From the very start, the Catholic mission also established, wherever feasible, independent schools in charge, or under the supervision, of the priest.

“Outside the city, at Ahuimanu, Maigret has now a country retreat that he refers to by the Hawaiian word māla. It is a combination garden, orchard and kitchen garden.”

Nuhou describes it, “The venerable bishop has built his own vineyard and planted his own orchard … His retreat in the mountain, his “garden in the air” as he terms it, is a pleasant and profitable sight … with a small stone-walled cottage about fifteen feet by ten.” When the pressure of events allows it, Maigret takes refuge there.” (Charlot)

Although the College of Ahuimanu flourished, as apparently reported by the Bishop in 1865, “The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.”

One of its students, Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy. Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of the schooling at the College of Ahuimanu.

Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien de Veuster at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864; in 1873, Maigret assigned him to Molokaʻi. Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi. In 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

In 1859 the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary arrived at Honolulu to take charge of a boarding and day-school for girls. In 1883-84 the Brothers of Mary, from Dayton, Ohio, took charge of three schools for boys: St. Louis’s College at Honolulu, St. Mary’s School at Hilo and St. Anthony’s School at Wailuku.

In 1882, the mission received a considerable increase by the immigration of Portuguese imported from the Azores as laborers for the plantations.

In January 1883, Walter Gibson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Board of Health, appealed to Hermann Koeckemann, Bishop of Olba, head of the Catholic Mission in Hawai‘i, to obtain Sisters of Charity from one of the many sisterhoods in the US to come and help care for leprous women and girls in the Islands.

By 1911, Hawaiʻi had 85 priests, 30 churches and 55 chapels. The Catholic population was 35,000; there were 4 academies, a college and 9 parochial schools established by the mission, and the total number of pupils was 2,200.

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