Catholicism was introduced on Jamaica in 1494, when the island was taken by Spain.
After the English conquest of the island the catholic religion was forbidden and
the community disappeared.
In 1792, at the request of foreign traders, a priest was allowed to officiate for
them. In the course of the following years a new small community came into existence
and in 1837, the island was detached from Trinidad - to which it had been subject
since 1818 - and became a separate Apostolic Vicariate. (1)
(1) The Vicariate also included :
- British Honduras from 1851 to 1883
- the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, two dependencies of
Jamaica.
(although there seem not to have been catholics on these island groups
before 1945)
Vicars Apostolic
1837 - 1855 Benito Fernández 1... - 1855
1855 - 1871 James Eustace Dupeyron
1871 - 1877 Joseph Sidney Woollett 1... - 1877
1877 - 1888 Thomas Porter 1... - 1888
1889 - 1906 Charles Gordon, Titular Bishop of Thyatira
in Lidia (2) 1831 - 1911
1907 - 1919 John Joseph Collins, Titular Bishop of
Antiphellos in Licia 1856 - 1934
1919 - 1926 William H. O'Hare, Titular Bishop of
Maximianopolis in Arabia 1870 - 1926
1927 - 1930 Joseph N. Dinand, Titular Bishop of Selinus
in Isauria 1869 - 1949
1930 - 1949 Thomas Addis Emmet, Titular Bishop of
Tuscamia in Mauretania Caesariensis 1873 - 1950
(2) First Titular Bishop.
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