The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

: ''Dioecesis Taravana et Nauruna'') in

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

and

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in ...

is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Suva. It was erected as the Vicariate Apostolic of Gilbert Islands in 1897, with see in Tanaeang (on Tabiteuea) from 1936 to the end of 1950s, and later elevated to as the Diocese of

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

Mission ''sui iuris'' of Funafuti. The diocese currently has jurisdiction over all of Kiribati and

History

The first missionaries

The first Christian missionaries to arrive in the

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

were Protestants from Hawaii and New England, the first of whom arrived in November 1857. The most notable of these missionaries was

Hiram Bingham II Hiram Bingham II (August 16, 1831 – October 25, 1908) was a Protestant Christian missionary to Hawaii and the Gilbert Islands. Life and career Born in Honolulu, Bingham was the sixth child of early missionary Hiram Bingham I (1789&nd ...

, a Congregationalist minister and son of

Hiram Bingham I Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I (October 30, 1789 – November 11, 1869), was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. Like most of the missionaries, he was from New ...

, an early missionary in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Bingham and his wife translated the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

into Gilbertese, wrote school books, and authored a major dictionary (published posthumously), before leaving the islands in the early 1860s due to ill health. In addition to Bingham's conversions, many of the Gilbertese natives had been taken by blackbirders in the 1870s to work on plantations on other islands in the Pacific, where they were met by Catholic missionaries. Two of these converted laborers, Betero and Tiroi, returned to Nonouti and instructed the local people about Catholicism. They built eight small churches, where people of different villages assembled each Sunday to sing

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn ...

s and recite prayers. By 1888, Betero and Tiroi had already baptized 560 people and were instructing and additional 600. As the number of Catholics grew, the two men wrote letters to many Catholic bishops requesting missionaries and priests.

Arrival of Catholic priests

In response to a letter Betero and Tiroi sent to Samoa, three members of the

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC; la, Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis; french: Missionnaires du Sacré-Coeur) are a missionary congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1854 by Servant of God Jules Chevalier (182 ...

, Father E. Bontemps, Father

Joseph Leray Joseph Leray (born in 1854 in Montoir-de-Bretagne) was a French clergyman and bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru (Latin: ''Dioecesis Taravana et Nauruna'') in Kiribati and N ...

, and Brother Conrad Weber, left in a tiny

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoo ...

from

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

in 1887 and arrived on Nonouti on the

Feast of the Ascension The Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, also called Ascension Day, Ascension Thursday, or sometimes Holy Thursday, commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven. It is one of the ecumenical (i.e., shared by ...

, 10 May 1888. They anchored at the entrance of a wide, shallow

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into '' coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons ...

, and took a dinghy to land on shore, where a crowd of local people were waiting. The trip to the shore was taking several hours, so the two priests decided to celebrate

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different ele ...

on the dinghy some distance from land as it was close to midday. So the first Catholic Mass on the Gilbert Islands took place on a dinghy in the Nonouti lagoon. When the missionaries arrived on shore, they visited the church, which they found to be large and well built, and already equipped with an

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in pagan ...

altar cloth An altar cloth is used in the Christian liturgy to cover the altar. It serves as a sign of reverence as well as a decoration and a protection of the altar and the sacred vessels. In the orthodox churches is covered by the antimension, which also c ...

, and

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (La ...

. The following morning, Mass was celebrated in the church, supplemented by Gilbertese hymns and prayers. After Mass, a statue of

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The origin of this Marian title goes back to Father Jules Chevalier, the founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. History In 1854, in Issoudun, during the novena of the ...

was placed in a visible location.

Arrival of religious sisters

In 1892, Father Bontemps, accompanied by two young Gilbertese men, left for Europe on a trip to gain assistance for the Gilbert Islands mission. They visited

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, and in 1894 visited

Issoudun Issoudun () is a commune in the Indre department, administrative region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is also referred to as ''Issoundun'', which is the ancient name. Geography Location Issoudun is a sub-prefecture, located in the east ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where the

Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart The Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded on 30 August 1874 by Servant of God Jules Chevalier (1824-1907), the Founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. From the Latin ...

, the sister congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, had their convent. Bontemps asked the Superior General, Mother Marie Louise, for sisters for the Gilbert Islands. Marie Louise had long been a loyal helper of the Missionaries, but in this case she hesitated due to the exceptional isolation of the Gilbert Islands. However, she hesitantly agreed and named seven sisters, the oldest of whom was 25, to be sent to the islands. Bontemps and the sisters left Issoudun in April 1895, and on the return trip stopped for a short stay with the sisters at Kensington, Australia. They also stopped in Sydney, where two more sisters joined them, bringing the total to nine. They arrived at the Gilbert Islands in August, after a difficult journey on the ''Archer'', an old, slow, and unsteady ship, which had to be used because nobody wanted to risk a new ship in such rough and

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock ...

-strewn seas. On 28 June 1897, it was established as Apostolic Vicariate of the Gilbert Islands (''Insularum Gilbertinarum'' in Latin) from

Apostolic Vicariate of New Pomerania New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Da ...

Poverty and hostility from Protestants

Upon their arrival, both material and social conditions were difficult for the sisters. The sisters, who were active in education, faced much opposition from the Protestant teachers. In addition, they faced stark poverty. Upon the sisters' arrival at the mission house where the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were living and where the sisters were to live, they found a kitchen equipped only with two small saucepans, a few plates, and a single spoon, to serve 12 missionaries. There were no cups or glasses, so the missionaries drank out of jam tins. They lived off of

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the f ...

taro Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Afri ...

s, fish, black coffee,

brown sugar Brown sugar is unrefined or partially refined soft sugar. Brown Sugar may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Brown Sugar'' (1922 film), a 1922 British silent film directed by Fred Paul * ''Brown Sugar'' (1931 film), a 1931 ...

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be s ...

boiled rice Cooked rice refers to rice that has been cooked either by steaming or boiling. The terms steamed rice or boiled rice are also commonly used. Any variant of Asian rice (both Indica and Japonica varieties), African rice or wild rice, glutinous o ...

, tinned beans, and salted meat.

Condensed milk Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of ''sweetened condensed milk'' (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condense ...

and bread were treats saved for Sundays and

feast days The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does ...

. The extreme heat, in addition to

malnourishment Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...

and disease, caused a number of deaths during the early years; however, it took four months or longer for the news of this to reach Europe. A second group of sisters arrived on Nonouti on 2 February 1899. Conditions were still very primitive and poor. During the sisters' early years in the Gilbert Islands, the young Superior, Mother Mary Isabel, as well as the priests, often traveled from Nonouti, the mission headquarters, to visit newly established missions on other islands in the chain. These voyages were hazardous and often very exciting. On one occasion, Mother M. Isabel and Father Bontemps left Nonouti to visit a nearby island, but after two weeks of battling against wind and strong currents, landed in

, 100

kilometers The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...

off course. The island's administrator invited them to come ashore, which Bontemps agreed to do the next morning. However, during the night, the current carried their vessel off to the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...

. There they were welcomed ashore by

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Capuchin missionaries, and were just in time for a feast and baptism of the native king and queen. Mother M. Isabel was given the honor of being godmother. After several days they set out for the Gilbert Islands, and sighted Nonouti on 27 June 1897 after an absence of five months. In addition to material difficulties the missionaries faced, they faced hostile opposition from Protestants, at that time the dominant and established faith. Some of the inhabitants of the southern island of

Nikunau Nikunau is a low coral atoll in the Gilbert Islands that forms a council district of the Republic of Kiribati. It consists of two parts, with the larger in the northwest, joined by an isthmus about wide. There are several landlocked hypersaline ...

asked for missionaries, so the next year a priest and two sisters were sent. They faced fierce opposition from the island's Protestants. Upon their arrival, they were forbidden to go ashore, a command which they disobeyed at risk of their safety. They were left stranded on the beach, with the few possessions they had amidst a crowd of hostile people. Nobody gave them any assistance until dusk, when a European trader took pity on them and allowed them to spend the night on his veranda. The next day the sisters went out to collect materials to build their house. The local policeman threatened imprisonment to anyone who would work with the missionaries, so they had to do the labor themselves. However, several years later conditions had improved to the point where the sisters were able to found a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

for girls.

20th century

The Catholic mission's first inter-island ship was launched in 1938. It was built on the island of

Abemama Abemama (Apamama) is an atoll, one of the Gilberts group in Kiribati, and is located southeast of Tarawa and just north of the Equator. Abemama has an area of and a population of 3,299 . The islets surround a deep lagoon. The eastern part o ...

and was named ''Santa Teretia''. Previously in 1894 the mission had bought a small ship, the ''Maris Stella'', but it was sold in 1910 to help the mission through financial difficulty. Before 1894 and from 1910 to 1938, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had to rely on passing ships carrying

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from co ...

or cargo in order to reach the various islands. Bishop

Octave Terrienne Octave-Marie Terrienne MSC (9 September 1902 – 4 March 1994) was the Roman Catholic bishop of the apostolic vicariate of the Gilbert Islands from 1937 until 1961, when Pierre Guichet succeeded him. He was bishop of Menelaites (a titular see ...

established his vicariate on Tabiteuea North in 1938 The new ship was sold to a local company in 1950 and a larger ship, also named ''Santa Teretia'', was bought from an Australian company. The new ship went aground in Nauru during a storm and could not be refloated. A third ship was bought, which also was sunk on a reef of one of the southern islands. In 1970 airstrips were built on all but one of the outer islands which made travel much more convenient for the priests and sisters. On 21 June 1966, the Vicariate Apostolic of Gilbert Islands, of Bishop Pierre Guichet, vicariate which had existed since 1897, was elevated as the Diocese of Tawara. On 15 November 1978, its name was changed to the Diocese of Tarawa, Nauru and Funafuti, and on 10 September 1982, was changed to the Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru. During the 20th century, the number of active clergy and religious sisters in the diocese grew quickly. In 1950, Bishop

founded an indigenous congregation called the Sisters of St. Therese. And, in 1960, several indigenous girls asked to join the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and were sent to study at the sisters' Australian

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

. As there were not many Sisters of St. Therese, they asked to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, and the merger happened in 1968. In 1976 the Daughters of the Sacred Heart established a novitiate in the Gilbertine Islands. By 1970, there were nearly 25,000 Catholics in the diocese, nearly 45% of the population. By 2015 Census, Catholics made up 57% of the total population of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

, numbering 63,116.2015 Census
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Ordinaries

, MSC (27 July 1897 – 1926) # Joseph Bach, MSC (26 January 1927 – 27 December 1933) #

, MSC (2 December 1937 – 28 February 1961) # Pierre Guichet, MSC (19 July 1961 – 15 November 1978) # Paul Mea, MSC (15 November 1978 – 29 June 2020) # Koru Tito (29 June 2020 – 6 August 2022) (elected) # ''

Sede vacante ''Sede vacante'' ( in Latin.) is a term for the state of a diocese while without a bishop. In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the term is used to refer to the vacancy of the bishop's or Pope's authority upon his death or resignation. Hi ...

Churches

* Our Lady of the Rosary Church,

Koinawa Koinawa is a village on Abaiang atoll in Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Tarawa and Nauru Catholic Church in Nauru Roman Catholic dioceses in Oceania