Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru
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Diocese of Tawara and Nauru Dioecesis Taravanus et Naurunus |
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| Location | |
| Country |
 Nauru
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| Ecclesiastical province | Suva |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 320 sq mi (830 km2) |
| Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2014) 119,435 63,644 (53.3%) |
| Parishes | 15 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | 28 June 1897 |
| Cathedral | Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Bishop | Paul Eusebius Mea Kaiuea |
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru (Latin: Dioecesis Taravanus et Naurunus) in Kiribati and Nauru is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Suva. It was erected as the Vicariate Apostolic of Gilbert Islands in 1897 and elevated to as the Diocese of Tarawa diocese in 1966. There was a name change in 1978 and, in 1982, the diocese was split from the Mission Sui Iuris of Funafuti. The diocese currently has jurisdiction over all of Kiribati and Nauru.
The first Christian missionaries to arrive in the Gilbert Islands were Protestants from New England, the first of whom arrived in November 1857. The most notable of these missionaries was Hiram Bingham II, a Congregationalist minister and son of Hiram Bingham I, an early missionary in Hawaii. Bingham and his wife translated the Bible into Gilbertese, wrote school books, and authored a major dictionary (published posthumously), before leaving the islands in the early 1860s due to ill health.
In addition to Bingham's conversions, many of the Gilbertese natives had been taken by blackbirders in the 1870s to work on plantations on other islands in the Pacific, where they were met by Catholic missionaries. Two of these converted laborers, Betero and Tiroi, returned to Nonouti and instructed the local people about Catholicism. They built eight small churches, where people of different villages assembled each Sunday to sing hymns and recite prayers. By 1888, Betero and Tiroi had already baptized 560 people and were instructing and additional 600. As the number of Catholics grew, the two men wrote letters to many Catholic bishops requesting missionaries and priests.
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