A photo of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace circa 1867, the site of the first Catholic mission in the islands. The diocese has begun planning for the bicentennial celebration of the establishment of the Catholic faith in Hawaii. (HCH file photo)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Planning has begun for celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Catholicism’s arrival in Hawaii.
The bicentennial anniversary in 2027 is 200 years after a small group of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary priests and brothers from France arrived on Oahu in July 1827 to establish a Catholic mission.
Deacon Keith Cabiles, the Diocese of Honolulu’s chancellor, is heading up the planning bicentennial committee along with Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona and Fathers EJ Resinto and Alfred Omar Guerrero.
Subcommittees to plan a large liturgical celebration, faith formation and education events, Catholic schools involvement, marketing and communications efforts, island by island teams, and other diocesan events are in the works.
Listening sessions on all the islands will help collect ideas on how to celebrate. Initial meetings were held with the Bishop’s Administrative Advisory Council, the Presbyteral Council, and the Diocesan Pastoral Council.
Deacon Cabiles said anyone interested in volunteering with the bicentennial efforts should email him at kcabiles@rcchawaii.org.
Protestants were first
In 1827, the Sacred Hearts priests and brothers arrived in Honolulu’s harbor on July 7 and first went ashore on July 8.
Many of the Hawaiian royals at the time had been converted to the Protestant faith by Congregationalist missionaries who were the first Christian missionaries to arrive in Hawaii back in 1820. Having already established themselves, the Protestants didn’t want Catholic competition and encouraged King Kamehameha III to remove the priests from the islands in 1831. The Sacred Hearts brothers, being lay persons, were allowed to stay.
In 1839, a French frigate sailed into Honolulu and demanded Catholics be allowed to stay in the islands, allowing the faith to return.
Past celebrations
Milestone anniversaries marking Catholicism coming to Hawaii were held in the past, including an unprecedented Catholic Mass celebrated on Iolani Palace grounds in 1927.
In 1977, the 150th anniversary included a Mass at Aloha Stadium with around 150 clergy and 20,000 laity in attendance. A 35-foot-tall covered altar pavilion was erected in the middle of the stadium’s field and Bishop John J. Scanlan presided at the May 15 Mass. The Vatican’s U.S. apostolic delegate, Archbishop Jean Jadot, attended as did Catholic bishops and cardinals from the mainland U.S. and around the Pacific and Asia. A 600-person Sesquicentennial Chorale group dressed all in white led the Mass music and representatives from nine ethnic groups brought up gifts at the offertory.
Other events to mark the sesquicentennial, which was themed “The Family of Faith Celebrates,” included celebrations on other islands, a banquet at the Sheraton Waikiki, parish missions, a rosary crusade, and the creation of a commemorative booklet and poster.
A three-day celebration taking place July 7-9, 1977, marked the actual days of the first Catholic missionaries’ arrival. There was a Mass, a performance by Terence Knapp of the acclaimed one-man play “Damien,” a procession down Fort Street Mall, and a chicken dinner.
In January 1977, Bishop Scanlan had also sent Father Louis H. Yim and Maryknoll Father Joseph Mathies to Pohnpei to try and find the gravesite of Father Alexis Bachelot, who first established the Catholic mission on Oahu. While his body wasn’t located, Father Yim planted a kiawe sapling that could be traced back to the first kiawe tree the Sacred Hearts missionaries planted by their Fort Street chapel in downtown Honolulu.
A more subdued marking of the 175th anniversary of Catholicism in Hawaii took place in 2002. Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo presided at a Mass on July 8 and on July 9 that year, with continuous eucharistic adoration over the 24 hours in between.
