Hawaii's Edict Of Toleration

Today in Catholic History – Catholics obtain religious freedom in Hawaii

In 1831, Protestant missionaries converted Hawaii’s Queen Ka’ahumanu to convert from Catholicism to Protestantism and to ban Catholicism from her son’s kingdom.  Catholic priests serving in the islands were rounded up and deported, via ship, on December 24, 1831.  Hawaiian officials then went after the islands’ native Catholics, imprisoning and torturing them until they renounced their faith and embraced Protestantism.

Under this growing influence of Protestants (Congregationalists) from New England, Kamehameha III’s mother and the Congregationalists encouraged a policy of wiping out any Catholic presence in Hawaii.

On 10 July 1839 a French frigate sailed into Honolulu Harbor on the justification that it was sent to protect the rights of the Catholic Church. Its captain had been ordered to:

Destroy the malevolent impression which you find established to the detriment of the French name; to rectify the erroneous opinion which has been created as to the power of France; and to make it well understood that it would be to the advantage of the chiefs of those islands of the Ocean to conduct themselves in such a manner as not to incur the wrath of France. You will exact, if necessary with all the force that is yours to use, complete reparation for the wrongs which have been committed, and you will not quit those places until you have left in all minds a solid and lasting impression.

On 17 July 1839, King Kamehameha III issued an Edict of Toleration permitting Catholics in Hawaii to freely practice their religion which had been facing severe persecution.

King Kamehameha feared a French attack on his kingdom and so issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants. King Kamehameha also donated land on which the first permanent Catholic church would be constructed, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, and paid $20,000 in compensation to the Catholics who had been persecuted.