"The many Pacific Islands have many founding stories. For the Catholics of Western Oceania, stories go back to the members of the Society of Mary and the man who sent them out as religious: Jean-Claude Colin, who agreed to staff the mission in February 1836. This book expores the relationship of Colin to the Marists, to Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, the first Catholic bishop, and to the pope in Rome. ... This volume, the fruit of international cooperation, focuses on the French presence (religious and political) in the Pacific and on the missionaries who were mostly Marists (religious men and women, and lay people)."--P. [4], cover.