Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia Archidioecesis Samoa-Apiana Puleaga Fa'aAkiepikopo Samoa-Apia | |
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Location | |
Country | Samoa |
Ecclesiastical province | Samoa-Apia |
Statistics | |
Area | 2,922 km2 (1,128 sq mi) |
Population - Total - Catholics | (as of 2010) 189,000 42,500 (22.5%) |
Parishes | 38 |
Information | |
Denomination | Catholic |
Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
Rite | Roman Rite |
Established | 20 August 1850 (174 years ago) |
Cathedral | Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Archbishop | Most Rev. Mosese Vitolio Tui |
Map | |
Territory of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia |
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia (Latin : Archidioecesis Samoa-Apiana; Samoan: PuleagaFa'aAkiepikopo Samoa-Apia) consists of the Independent State of Samoa.
In 1842, the Propaganda Fide created the Apostolic Vicariate of Central Oceania that included New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji Islands. This lost territory with establishment by canonical erection by the Holy See on August 20, 1850, of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Navigators' Archipelago, entrusted to the Society of Mary (Marists). On January 4, 1957, the Vatican changed the name of the Vicariate Apostolic to Samoa and the Tokelau Islands.
The vicariate apostolic was elevated to the Diocese of Apia on June 21, 1966, and made suffragan to the metropolitan see of Suva, Fiji. On August 10, 1974, the name of the diocese was changed to Diocese of Apia o Samoa and Tokelau; and it was changed again on December 3, 1975, to the Diocese of Samoa and Tokelau.
On September 10, 1982, the diocese was elevated to the dignity of an archdiocese taking the name of the See city, Apia. Simultaneously, the Diocese of Samoa–Pago Pago was created from a portion of the former Diocese of Samoa Tokelau and made suffragan to the metropolitan see of Apia. [1]
On 24 April 2023, Archbishop Alapati Lui Mataeliga was airlifted to Auckland Hospital, in New Zealand and died in the early hours of the following morning. [2]
As the metropolitan see, the archdiocese has two suffragans: the Diocese of Samoa–Pago Pago and the Mission Sui Iuris of Tokelau. Until March 2003, the Mission Sui Iuris of Funafuti was also a suffragan, but since that date it is now a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Suva.
The Diocese of Samoa–Pago Pago is a Latin Church suffragan diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States overseas dependency of American Samoa, in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa–Apia.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mbarara in Uganda covers an area of 10,980 km2 in southwestern Uganda. As of 2003, of the 2.2 million citizens in the area 856,168 are members of the Catholic Church. The archdiocese is subdivided into 25 parishes, and has 114 priests altogether. The archdiocese is the metropolitan for the dioceses of:
George Hamilton Pearce was the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Apia, Samoa, and the first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Suva, Fiji.
Alapati Lui Mataeliga was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Samoa-Apia and Ecclesiastical Superior of the Mission sui iuris of Tokelau. He was born in Sataua on the island of Savai'i. He was ordained for the presbyterate of the Diocese of Samoa and Tokelau on 5 July 1977. Upon the retirement of Cardinal Pio Taofinu'u, Father Mataeliga was appointed by the Holy See as the second Archbishop of Samoa-Apia on 16 November 2002. He was consecrated to the episcopate and installed as ordinary by Archbishop Patrick Coveney, Apostolic Nuncio to Samoa, on 3 January 2003.
Pio Taofinuʻu, S.M. was a Catholic cardinal and Archbishop of Samoa-Apia. Born in the village of Falealupo on the island of Savai'i in Samoa, he was the first Polynesian bishop and cardinal. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Paul VI in the Consistory of 5 March 1973, of the Title of St. Onofrio. His father was Taofinuʻu Solomona and his mother, Mau.
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In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a mission sui iuris, also known as an independent mission, can be defined as: "an ecclesial structure erected from a previous territory, with explicit boundaries, under the care of a religious community or other diocese, responding to a missionary exigency and headed by a superior nominated by the Holy See, under the aegis of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples."
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Suva is a Metropolitan Archdiocese in Fiji. It is responsible for the suffragan dioceses of Rarotonga and Tarawa and Nauru and —as of 21 March 2003—the Mission Sui Iuris of Funafuti. The archdiocese was created in 1966, to succeed the Apostolic Vicariate of Fiji.
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The Mission Sui Iuris of Funafuti is a Catholic Latin mission sui juris in Tuvalu, Polynesia.
The Roman Catholic Mission Sui Iuris of Tokelau in Tokelau is a suffragan mission of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia. It was formed in 1992 when the Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia and Tokelau was split into the Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia and the Mission Sui Iuris of Tokelau. The position of Ecclesiastical Superior is currently vacant following the death of Archbishop Alapati Lui Mata’eliga on 25 April 2023.
The Archdiocese of Kinshasa is an archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its ecclesiastic territory includes the capital city of Kinshasa and surrounding districts. The archdiocese is the metropolitan see for the Ecclesiastical Province of Kinshasa. The current archbishop is Fridolin Ambongo Besungu.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Antofagasta is a Latin Rite Metropolitan archdiocese in northern Chile's Antofagasta Province.
The Catholic Church in Samoa is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, which, initiated by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and Roman curia in the Vatican City is the largest Christian church in the world. Catholic missionaries arrived in Samoa in 1845 and today Catholics account for around 20% of the overall population. Archbishop Alapati Lui Mataeliga was ordained as head of the Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia in 2003.
The Episcopal Conference of the Pacific (CEPAC) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church that includes the bishops of several islands in Oceania. The CEPAC is a member of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO).
13°49′56″S171°45′58″W / 13.8321°S 171.7660°W