Hawaii: Today in History 1/25
1-25-1941 Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
Pope Gregory XVI had divided Oceania into two vicariates apostolic. The evangelization of the Vicariate Apostolic of Oriental Oceania (consisting of the prefectures apostolic of Tahiti, the Marquesas, and the Sandwich Islands) was entrusted to the Picpus Fathers, then recently established by Pierre Coudrin.[3] The Vicariate Apostolic of Occidental Oceania was likewise entrusted to the Society of Mary, Marianists and Marists, founded in 1836 at Lyon by Jean-Claude-Marie Colin.[4]
Shortly after the disappearance at sea of the Vicar Apostolic of Oriental Oceania, Msgr. Rouchouze and a company of missionaries on the Marie Joseph in 1843, the Vatican canonically erected from its territories the Vicariate Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands.[5] Similar vicariates apostolic were created for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Blessed Pius IX changed its name in 1848 to the Vicariate Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands. Venerable Pope Pius XII elevated the vicariate apostolic to the dignity of a diocese on January 25, 1941, as it remains today