The Catholic Church of Tanaeang, missionary heart of Tabiteuea
In the atoll of Tabiteuea, in the Gilbert Islands, the village of Tanaeang has a unique history: there in 1936 the Bishop Octave Terrienne, of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, his main church, was built, and there was the seat of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Gilbert Islands from the 1930s to the late 1950s. Today the community belongs to the diocese of Tarawa and Nauru.
🌹 Wonders and anecdotes
- The Gilbert evangelization was opened by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart: Fathers E. Bontemps and Joseph Leray and brother Conrad Weber sailed from Sydney in a small gulet and arrived in Nonouti on May 10, 1888; the apostolic vicariate was erected in 1897.
- In 1936, Bishop Terrienne raised his main church in Tanaeang and established the Vicariate's seat there, which remained in Tabiteuea until the late 1950s, before his elevation as a diocese of Tarawa in 1966.
- The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, diffusers throughout the world of devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, planted in these atolls a faith that lasts: according to the 2015 census, Catholics are 57% of the population of Kiribati, some 63,116 faithful.
- From Tabiteuea also came a pastor: Koru Tito, born in 1960 in Buota (Tabiteuea Norte), was appointed bishop of Tarawa and Nauru on June 29, 2020, although he died on August 7, 2022 before receiving the episcopal consecration.
Tanaeang Mission
In Tanaeang, on the coral of Tabiteuea, a missionary church was for two decades the episcopal seat of the Gilbert Islands. The seed that the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart planted continues to bear fruit in one of the most remote corners of the Pacific.
"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the Star of the Sea, keeps the peoples from the atolls that pray to your Son.
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