Bishop James J. Sweeney, first diocesan Bishop of Honolulu. (HCH file photo)
Hawaii Catholic Herald
It’s been 80 years since the establishment of the Diocese of Honolulu.
Two dates are given for the establishment of the diocese — Jan. 25, 1941, when Pope Pius XII apparently announced the creation of the diocese, and Sept. 10, 1941, when the first diocesan bishop was installed in Honolulu and the decree of the “erection of the diocese” was read at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
Before becoming a diocese, Hawaii was a missionary vicariate apostolic administered by priests and bishops of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
The Official Catholic Directory lists the Sept. 10 date. However, Bishop Silva has a decree, dated Aug. 31, 1941, and signed by John Amleto Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the U.S.A., that states Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Honolulu on Jan. 25, 1941.
But that date was never mentioned at the time in the Catholic Herald (not yet the “Hawaii Catholic Herald”). Editions in the early months of 1941 did make a couple of sketchy references to a declaration of the new diocese but gave no details.
A boxed note on the bottom of the Feb. 27, 1941, front page stated in its entirety: “No official information regarding the status of the Catholic Church in Hawaii has yet been received here, as we go to press this week, according to Very Rev. Victorinus Claesen, SS.CC., Pro-Vicar. ‘Other than the press dispatches in the local papers,’ said Father Victorinus, ‘I have no official word regarding the change. However, I expect official notification soon and full details will be published in next week’s issue of the Catholic Herald.’”
The pro-vicar was the priest put in charge of the mission after Bishop Stephen Alencastre died the year before.
The next issue did not give any details as promised. Nor did any of the issues following.
But an announcement had been made someplace. In the March 13 issue of the Catholic Herald, in Sacred Hearts Father Valentin Franks, in his column “Father Valentin Remembers,” referred to it: “The news of the changes brought in last week was not a surprise, but nevertheless it was an important event in the history or the Catholic Church in the Hawaiian Islands. By decree of the Vatican, the status of the Mission was raised to the dignity of a regular diocese under jurisdiction of the Archbishop of San Francisco, the Rev. Archbishop J. Mitty.”
As Father Franks stated, the graduation from vicariate to diocese was anticipated. Three local “diocesan” priests had been ordained in 1938. And the largest organization of Catholic laymen in Hawaii at the time was already being called the “Diocesan” Union of the Holy Name Society.
But the diocese really doesn’t get moving until a bishop is in place. On May 20, 1941, Pope Pius XII named Bishop James J. Sweeney, 42, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, as Bishop of Honolulu. He was consecrated a bishop in San Francisco on July 25, 1941, and arrived in Hawaii on Sept. 7.
Bishop Sweeney was given possession of the diocese during an installation ceremony during a pontifical high Mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on Sept. 10, 1941. In the same ceremony, the Sept 11, 1941, Catholic Herald reported, the reading of the official church document by Msgr. Harold E. Collins, secretary to Archbishop Mitty, “elevated the island vicariate to the status of diocese.”
