Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu is an ecclesiastical territory or particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The diocese is comprised of the entire state of Hawaii and the unincorporated Hawaiian Islands. The diocese is suffragan to the Metropolitan Province of San Francisco which includes the dioceses of Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Stockton. The patrons of the Diocese of Honolulu are the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Peace, and Blessed Damien of Molokai.

Foundation

The Laplace incident and the Edict of Toleration inspired Etienne Jerome Rouchouze, the Apostolic Vicar of Oriental Oceania, to move to Honolulu from Valparaíso. The bishop disembarked from his ship at Honolulu Harbor in the company of three Picpus Fathers. One of them was the earlier exiled Louis Désiré Maigret. Their arrival officially signified the Roman Catholic victory over persecution in the Hawaiian Islands and the beginning of a permanent Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii.

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The first permanent church broke ground on the memorial feast of Our Lady of Peace on July 9, 1840. Our Lady of Peace had been the patroness of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary since the turmoil of the French Revolution. Fathers Armand, Bachelot and Short had consecrated the Hawaiian Islands under the protection of Our Lady of Peace when they first arrived. During the groundbreaking Mass, 280 Native Hawaiian catechumens received baptism and confirmation. For the rest of the year, devotees harvested large blocks of coral off the southern coastline of Oahu to build what would become the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

Related Topics:
Memorial feast - July 9 - 1840

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On the various neighbor islands, Bishop Rouchouze commissioned the construction of other permanent churches to serve as parish missions. They also started building makeshift schools to teach in the Roman Catholic traditions of academia. A printing press was brought into Honolulu for the production of Roman Catholic literature including missals and hymnals written in the Hawaiian language.

Related Topics:
School - Academia - Printing press

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In January 1842, an excited Bishop Rouchouze, pleased with the success of his work, decided to sail back to the Paris home of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in order to recruit more Picpus Fathers and religious brothers to serve in the growing Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii. Tragically, Bishop Rouchouze was lost at sea during his voyage back to the Hawaiian Islands. His suffragan apostolic prefects took charge of the Apostolic Vicariate of Oriental Oceania while a search party was dispatched. Years later, the search was officially ended and Bishop Rouchouze was pronounced dead.

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