Tag Archive for ‘Tonga Catholic Church’

The Beginnings of the Catholic Church in Tonga – Part 1

Based on the writings of Fr Joseph Deihl SM, adapted by the editor. Italics are used where Fr Deihl is quoted directly and at length. The first Mass On the evening of the Feast of the Visitation on 1 July 1842, the first Catholic missionaries arrived in Tonga. The group on board the Sancta Maria […]

Introducing Fr Joseph Deihl SM

Fr Joseph Roch Deihl was born on 12 July 1895 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. When his mother died, he lived in an orphanage in Washington, Georgia, where, by chance, he met a Marist priest. Attracted to Marist life and after studies in a minor seminary, Joseph made his profession as a Marist in 1918 and […]