Fr Francis X. Hezel, SJ Micronesian Seminar Background As so often happened throughout the world, German missionaries followed a step behind their nation's gunboats and first colonial administrators into the islands. The German missionary effort in Micronesia was the direct consequence of German annexation of its colonial possessions in that area. Establishment of the German protectorate in the Marshall Islands in 1885 and Germany's acquisition of the Carolines and Marianas from Spain in 1899 created a need for German-speaking Catholic missionaries. Unlike Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church did not yet have indigenous church leaders, and it would be years before it got them. In the meantime, the growth of the church in the islands would depend, at least in part, on the church's ability to maintain a smooth working relationship with the foreign government. German missionaries may have been rather late arrivals to the islands, but missionaries of other nationalities were not. Indeed, Micronesia had the distinction of being the first part of Oceania evangelized. Jesuit missionaries established the first mission in the Mariana Islands in the late seventeenth century, shortly afterwards making a pair of unsuccessful attempts to extend their work into the Western Carolines. Although the Marianas with their greatly reduced population remained a Catholic enclave for the next two centuries, no further attempts were made to bring the Catholic faith to the rest of Micronesia except for a short-lived expedition of French Picpus priests in 1838. Rome formally established a Vicariate of Micronesia in 1844, but this was in reality only a "shadow vicariate" since nothing was done to evangelize the area for another forty years. Finally, in 1886, barely a year after a heated controversy between Spain and Germany over colonial rights to the Carolines had brought this island group to the attention of all of Europe, the first permanent Catholic mission was opened in that island group. Since the dispute over possession of the Carolines was resolved in favor of Spain, Spanish missionaries were selected to staff the new field. Spanish Capuchins, entrusted by Rome with the newly founded Prefecture of the Carolines, began work in Yap that year and in Pohnpei the next. These two islands, which became the government capitals of the Western Carolines and Eastern Carolines, were to be the hubs from which all Catholic mission ventures radiated for the next thirty-five years. Spain, having suffered a defeat at the hands of the United States in the Spanish-American War and now watching the last remnants of its once splendid empire dissolve, sold the Carolines and Marianas to Germany for 25 million pesetas in 1899. With its purchase of those islands in which it once carried out its commercial dealings without cost, Germany was fettered with the burden of colonial administration over most of Micronesia. The Marshalls, the neighboring island group to the east, became a German protectorate at about the same time that the Carolines were annexed by Spain. Just a few years earlier, in 1881, the Vicariate of Micronesia--which actually comprised little more than the Gilbert and Marshall Islands and Nauru--was turned over to the Sacred Heart Missionaries, a congregation that was founded in France not long before and whose membership was largely French. By 1887 they had initiated work in the Gilberts. In 1891 an MSC priest, Fr. Edouard Bontemps, and a brother made a brief reconnaissance visit to the Marshalls with an eye to expanding their mission activity to this group. The German colonial government, fearing that the admission of Catholic missionaries would provoke a hostile reaction from the Protestant population of the Marshalls, denied the MSCs permission to work there. In reality, however, the German government in the Marshalls had strong reasons for welcoming the presence of German-speaking missionaries into the colony. In addition to providing pastoral care and schooling for German administrators and businessmen, many of whom were Catholic, a Catholic mission presence would also serve to check the influence of the Congregational Church, whose past dealings with the government had been troubled. After a second visit by Fr. Bontemps to the Marshalls, the German commissioner of the Marshalls returned to Berlin to press for approval for the entry of Catholic missionaries. In 1898, following negotiations between the colonial office and the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, permission was granted. The Marshalls and Nauru were to be assigned to the German province of the MSCs, while the French would retain the Gilberts. Catholic mission work there would begin the following year. Continued German Catholic Missions in Micronesia-2