Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Kolonia: the Caroline Islands’ first cathedral, bombed to its belltower in World War II

At Kolonia, the historic capital of Pohnpei, the church of Our Lady of Mercy stands beside the surviving bell tower of the old German cathedral of the Carolines. The first Catholic church was built between 1900 and 1913 by four German Capuchin friars — Othmar Gesang, Melchior Majewsky, Kolonat Metzen and Koloman Wiegand — who ran their own sawmill and brick kiln on the spot. It became the episcopal seat of Bishop Salvator Walleser when the apostolic vicariate of the Marianas and Carolines was erected on 1 March 1911. No professional architect’s name is documented, and the cathedral has no consecration date distinct from the completion of the work. In May 1941 the Japanese army requisitioned the building, gave it back damaged at the end of 1942 and took it again as a depot in late 1943. The missionaries evacuated Kolonia in the first months of 1944 as the bombing grew heavier, and the town received about one hundred and eighteen tons of American bombs, besides naval and incendiary fire, though Pohnpei, unlike Chuuk, was bypassed by the Allied land invasion. By 1945, of the «magnificent church of Kolonia» only the bell tower and part of the dome were left standing. A new church, built beside the surviving tower to preserve it, was dedicated in December 1953 under Father Hugh Costigan, supervised by Brother William Condon. The surviving bell tower and apse were entered on the United States National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The seat of the diocese, today called the Diocese of the Caroline Islands, has meanwhile moved to Weno, in the State of Chuuk, where the present cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of Mary stands. The exact year of the move is not precisely documented, though the new cathedral at Chuuk is attested «towards the end of the sixties». The church at Kolonia serves today as a parish, not as a diocesan seat. The Catholic jurisdiction in the Carolines goes back to 1886, raised to an apostolic prefecture in 1905, to a vicariate in 1911 and to a diocese on 3 May 1979, and finally divided in 1993 from the apostolic prefecture of the Marshall Islands. The present bishop is Julio Angkel, in office since 2 February 2020. Catholicism reached Pohnpei with a permanent Spanish Capuchin mission on 14 March 1887, about thirty-five years after the arrival of the American Congregationalist missionaries. Nationally, Catholics are estimated at 55 per cent of the population of Micronesia against 41 per cent Protestants, according to the census of 2010. No pope has ever visited Micronesia or the Caroline Islands. The apostolic nunciature was established by John Paul II on 26 January 1994, without ever having a resident nuncio, and is entrusted to the nuncio in New Zealand.