ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ~~ ~(g 1887 • 1987 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ,. NEW HEBRIDES· VANUATU Digitalisation of this book is a Marist project, which aims at making previously published books on Pacific mission history available to a global audience on open access. Permissions have been given by the four international religious congregations and by individual copyright holders or other authorities, as appropriate. The project was undertaken in 2020. This digital version is available on open access to whoever wishes to read it. It may be stored in academic, religious and open access digital repositories and websites. Copyright is retained by the original copyright holder. The PDF file may not be used for commercial purposes. The Marist Family in the Pacific Marist Father (sm) Marist Brothers (fms) Marist Sisters (sm) Marist Missionary Sisters (smsm) Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth (csn – Bougainville) Daughters of Mary Immaculate (dmi – Solomon Islands) Petites Filles de Marie (pfm – New Caledonia) Sisters of Our Lady of Nazareth (soln – Fiji, Tonga, Samoa) Marist Laity 170· £ •• Torres Is. VANUATU ". • Banks Is. -... £'] Epi • , Sheph erd s Is. , ~h. [rate .,;.... .... Solomon Is . Erromango REPUB LIC , .; OF VA~UATlJ , .. Fiji Is. J .. <> . ~ ew Caledonia ~ Tanna . ;"\orrolk ls . .~ N <::) Ancityurn 170' ONE ·HUNDRED YEARS OF MISSION THE . CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW HEBRIDES -VANUATU + 1881" - 1981" Dear Friends, One Hundred Years of Mission! A legion of courageous Apostles have preceded us. They struggled to bring us the Faith : Priests, Brothers, Sisters, and Catechists wlw lived and in many cases lost their lives on an Island or at sea while at the service of the people of Vanuatu. How can we forget them? This little book tells the story of the birth and beginnings of the Catholic Church in the Archipelago of New Hebrides - Vanuatu. And as the brief history of each Mission Station is related we meet each of the heroic Marist Missionaries who faced incredible difficulties in their work of evangelisation and conversion. Their patience and their spirit of sacrifice reveal the intensity of their love for the people. Their fidelity to the Church and their tenacity in the midst of often discouraging circumstances are an inspiration to all who serve the Church today. I want to thank Father Paul Monnier for this brief but complete history of the Catholic Church in New Hebrides - Vanuatu. We now have in hand the story of each Mission Station and its missionaries from the beginning until now, 1987. A longer and more detailed narrative will not be too difficult to produce in the not too distantfuture. I want to thank also all those who helped Father Monnier to edit this Centenary Edition and those who also volunteered their services to translate into English. May the reading of this book help us all to better appreciate the work of our Missionaries in the Islands of the South Pacific and incite us to pray for the repose of the souls of these past heroes of the Faith, and to help in whatever way we can those who are striving to continue the work that began one hundred years ago. + Francis LAMBERT Bishop of Port Vila -2- · A FAR-AWAY ARCHIPELAGO LAND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Ever since Magellan circumnavigated the globe, explorers havc been searching the South Pacific for the Great Southern Continent. Pedro Fernandez de Queiros, a Portuguese navigator working for the King of Spain, was the first to think he had discovered it. On May 1st 1606 (in the Church's season of Pentecost), sailing directly south, he entered a huge bay. Here without any doubt, he thought, is the Great Southern Continent. Queiros went ashore, kissed the ground and thanked God. Hc baptised this new country "Land of the Holy Spirit" in honour of the Spirit of Pentccost : .. Austrialia Del Espiritu Santo", in Spanish. The Franciscan Fathers who accompanied him celcbrated a solemn Mass. TIle ships' cannons thundered during the procession of the Blessed Sacramcnt. Quciros. like a man in a dream, saw himself as founding the New Jcrusalem on the banks of the great river Ora, to which he gave the name "the Jordan" . Alas! The new paradise was peopled by savages. Queiros had hoped to baptiSt' them, but a hail of arrows sent the sai lors scurrying for safety. They returned a tokcn volley of musket-fire, and sailed out of the great bay. To add to thcir misfof!uncs. after eating fish from the bay they suffered the agonies of food poisoning. The dream evaporated. Queiros was anx ious to convey the news of his great diseovery to the King of Spain - ncws, of course, wh ich was false. Espiritu Santo was simply a large island, and the bay was Big-Bay. Before leaving, Queiros captured three children from the land of the Spirit. In all likclihood, they were the vcry first children of Vanuatu to be baptised. BOUGAINVILLE * 1768 / COOK * 1774 One was French, the Other British One was Catholic, the Other Protestant They ushered two centuries of rivalry After Queiros, the islands of Vanuatu remained forgollen for 162 years unti l they were re-discovered by the French Admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville. On May 22nd, 1768, Pentecost Sunday, he sighted a large mountainous island bathed in sunlight. He named it "Pentecost". -3- A FAR-AWAY ARCHIPELAGO However, Bougainville went ashore on one island only : Ambae. At the base of a tree he fixed a wooden plaque bearing the name of the King of France. and left hastily under a haiJ of stones and arrows. Setting a course south-westwards he sailed between Malekula and Malo (now called the Bougainville Straits) and disappeared. Six years later. on July 1774. came the famous Captain Cook. Working for the British Crown he charted all the islands. explored Tanna and was almost massacred on Erromango. Bougainville had re-named the islands "the New Cyclades". but Cook gave them another name: the New Hebrides. For the next two centuries the land of the Holy Spirit would be known as the New Hebrides until. on Independence Day. July 30th. 1980. it became "Vanuatu". The two great explorers'began a long period of rivalry between France and Great Britain in the New Hebrides. In 1887 the two countries agreed to set up a Joint Naval Commission and in 1906 they signed the Protocol which ratified the Anglo-French Condominium already created in 1904. A CHAIN OF OVER 80 ISLANDS The Vanuatu archipelago is composed of over 80 islands. with a IOtalland surface of 12.200 sq. km. From nonh to south. the chain stretches out over 900 km. This geographical dispersion of the islands was going to make evangel isation very difficult. The islands are still emerging from the sea today and are jolted continually by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Tanna. Ambrym and Lopevi have active volcanoes. Most of the islands are very mountainous, reaching as high as 1,879 metres on Santo. The hot. damp climate makes for thick and luxuriant vegetation; it also creates a haven for the Anopheles mosquito. which carries malaria. That 100 would have made life very arduous for the evangelisers. The inhabitants of the islands are Melanesians with. in sonic places, a noticeable Polynesian influence. The population may have been as high as 200,000 when the islands were first discovered. By 1930 that figure had dropped to around 30,000. Today it stands at over 120,000. -4- A FAR-AWAY ARCHIPELAGO THE AGE OF ADVENTURES AND FORTUNE-HUNTERS Yes, France and Great Britain had moved in and each was beginning to wateh the other out of the comer of his eye. Adventurers of every hue had invaded the islands too : whale-hunters, sandalwood traders, hunters of "beche de mer" (biche-la-mar would become the new language of the islands). Many of these profit seekers came from Australia. Having sold their cargo of food to the convict colony on Norfolk Island, they became the notorious "blackbirders", seeking human cargo for the sugar plantations of Queensland, and later of Fiji and New Caledonia. The story of their relations with the islanders is a cruel one; a story of whole tribes captured and sold, of ship's crews massacred, of men drowned at the end of an anchor chain, of sailors roasted and eaten. This dark chapter of the country's history is well known. But there existed another, and more likeable, type of adventurer; he was the survivor of a shipwreck, or a runaway from a passing merchantman, living on his own, usually on good terms with his Melanesian neighbours - he had to be to survive - putting himself at their service, purchasing their coconuts and trocas-shells and supplying in return, iron axes, rum, tobacco. More often than not, he purchased his wife from the local village. He was know as the "copra-maker". He was far from being an angel... yet very often he was the one who made easy the first steps of the missionary. If so many missionaries were allowed ashore without having their heads smashed, it was due to the underfed and ragged copra-maker who had come there before them. It was often the copra-maker who won over the mistrustful villagers, and not the missionary. THE FIRST MESSENGER OF THE GOOD NEWS He was born in a London suburb. His name was John WILLIAMS. At the age of 18 he was moved by grace and by the reading of Cook's adventures. At the age of 20 he left for Oceania with the London Mission Missionary Society (LMS). Rliiatea, Altutaki, the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga: All of these he visited with tireless zeal.