Catholicism | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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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Our Lady of Peace Cathedral, Honolulu, 1843

Portrait Of Monsignor Louis Désiré Maigret SS.CC., (1804 – 1882), The First Apostolic Vicar Of The Apostolic Vicariate Of The Sandwich Islands

First Catholic Church in the Islands-Puna-PP-14-9-014-00001

‘Portrait_of_Father_Damien’,_attributed_to_Edward_Clifford-1868

Father Damien-Pineiro

Father_Damien_the year he went to Kalaupapa-in_1873

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

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

Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth

March 23, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

$20,000 as a Guarantee

On July 21, 1838, the French minister of the navy dispatched orders to Captain Cyrille-Pierre-Theodore Laplace, who at the time was already en route to the Pacific on a voyage of circumnavigation. Laplace received these orders, along with supporting documents, at Port Jackson, Australia, in March 1839.

The plight of French Catholics in Hawai‘i being distressingly similar to that of French Catholics in Tahiti, these orders read: “… What the English Methodists are doing in Tahiti, American Calvinist missionaries are doing in the Sandwich Islands.”

“They have incited the king of these islands, or rather those who govern in his name, to actions that apply to all foreigners of the Catholic faith – all designated, intentionally, as ‘Frenchmen.’”

“They found themselves prohibited from practicing their religion, then ignominiously banished from the Island … You will exact, if necessary with all the force that you command, complete reparation for the wrongs that they have committed and you will not leave those shores until you have left an indelible impression.”

In addition to the religious persecution, “Our wines, brandies, fabrics, and luxury goods find ready purchasers in Honolulu as well as in Russian, British, and Mexican settlements; but these articles are imported by American merchants (or replaced by substitutes of American manufacture).”

“French wines and brandies are subject to excessively high duties, on the grounds that bringing them into the Sandwich Islands would be harmful to the morals of the native population. American rum, on the other hand, is brought in – whether legally or illegally, I do not know—and consumed in prodigious quantities.” (Laplace; Birkett)

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.

Captain Laplace and his fifty-two-gun frigate L’Artemise arrived in the Hawai‘i in July 1839. Laplace was the first Frenchman to visit the Islands with specific instructions from Paris to enter into official diplomatic relations with the Hawaiian government.

“It was my task to end this prohibition so detrimental to our commercial interests. I succeeded in doing so through a convention with the king of the Islands where he agreed that in the future French wines and brandies would be subject to no more than a 6 percent ad valorem duty when imported under the French flag.”

“The American missionaries raged and fumed at me, claiming that I was anti-Christian. They brought down on me all the curses of New and Old World Bible societies, to whom they depicted me as championing drunkenness among their converts …”

“… as if the way in which they were running things allowed these poor people to earn enough to buy Champagne, Bordeaux, or even Cognac brandy. Despite these diatribes, as unjust as they were treacherous, I carried my project to completion.” (Laplace; Birkett)

During the brief conflict, Laplace issued a ‘Manifesto’ “to put an end either by force or by persuasion to the ill-treatment of which the French are the victims at the Sandwich Islands” – Haʻalilio was taken hostage by the French. He was later exchanged for John ʻĪʻi who went on board the L’Artemise.

Item 4 of the Manifesto noted, “That the king of the Sandwich Islands deposit in the hands of the Captain of the l’Artemise the sum of twenty thousand dollars, as a guarantee of his future conduct towards France, which sum the government will restore to him when it shall consider that the accompanying treaty will be faithfully complied with.”

“However harsh the exaction of the $20,000 as a guarantee for the faithful observance by the King and chiefs of the treaty of the 12th July, 1839, the exaction of such pledges, and, even of hostages was a common practice, in remote ages of nations, now the leaders of civilization and the greatest in power.”

“It was the humiliating penalty which strength imposed on doubtful faith, before a higher civilization had rendered it the greatest reproach to a monarch, or the supreme director of a slate, to commit a breach of national faith, or break his word.” (Polynesian, May 12, 1855)

King Kamehameha III feared a French attack on his kingdom and on June 17, 1839 issued the Edict of Toleration (173-years ago today) permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.

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.

So, what became of the $20,000? … “The following notice respecting the visit of Rear Admiral Hamelin to these Islands, is taken from the Moniteur of 10th August, 1846:”

“M. le contre Admiral Hamelin, commanding in the Pacific Ocean and on the west coast of America, arrived at the Sandwich Islands in March last, in the frigate Virginie.”

“After being made aware that the treaty of 1839, made by Captain Laplace, had been executed with fidelity, that officer general, by the advice of M. Dudoit, the Consul of Prance, restored, to the Hawaiian Government $20,000, the guarantee of the fulfilment of that treaty.” (Polynesian, May 1, 1847)

“This was effected with all formality, on the 23d of March (1846), the money being delivered in the original cases, No. 1, 2, 3, 4, secured by the seals of the French Royal Navy, and that of the Hawaiian Government, to M. Kekuanaoa, C. Kanaina and Wm. Richards, Esq., as the King’s Commissioners.” (Wyllie; Polynesian, August 22, 1846)

“I saw a couple of handcarts containing several ironbound boxes, and guarded by files of French marines, proceeding up Nuuanu street from the wharf, and on enquiring was told that the boxes contained the twenty thousand dollars …”

“… which was being returned to the Hawaiian Government. The same seals were on the boxes which had been affixed when they were delivered to Captain La Place, seven years before.” (Sheldon)

“The benevolent disposition of the Hawaiian Government towards the Catholics established there, and the protection accorded our missionaries by the authorities of the country, fully justify that measure, which has produced good effect. It has proved the sincerity of the French Government, and we have no doubt, will secure to our compatriots in the Archipelago the protection due to them.”

“Admiral Hamelin and suite visited King Kamehameha, and remitted to him and his Minister a few presents, consisting of firearms, which were received with satisfaction.”

“The King invited Admiral Hamelin and his officers to a dinner, which was followed by a soiree at the Consulate of France. The next morning the King was received on board the frigate where he evidently appreciated the attention shown him by the Admiral.
It is pleasing to know that the transactions in March, 1846, had given satisfaction to the French people in regard to all parties concerned.”

“The protection of the French missionaries has been the award due to their good conduct, and it is their right under the existing laws.”

“The irregularities of 1837 and 1889 have disappeared with the excitements that created them; and the Consul of France may justly boast of having emerged from difficulties unusually great, and gained for himself and compatriots a high measure of popular esteem.” (Polynesian, May 1, 1847)

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L’Artemise,_Arthus_Bertrand