CATHOLIC SISTERS IN PREWAR SAIPAN
but no Catholic Sisters were allowed on Guam
Every Catholic mission throughout the world wanted religious Sisters.
Sure, the priests were the most crucial. The priest said the Masses, baptized, preached and so on. But the work of the Church involved more than that.
The religious Brothers did a lot of the manual work. They were the carpenters, brick-layers, cooks, tailors and sacristans for the priests. Many a priest said Mass in a chapel built by a Brother.
But the religious Sisters were also very important, especially with the children. Children, both boys and girls, are nurtured best by mothers and the Sisters were the mothers. If Sisters were working in a mission, the children were well-grounded in the faith. Besides the children, the Sisters worked with the mothers and single women of the community, teaching them domestic and academic skills besides religious subjects. The Sisters formed choirs and taught the women to sew, many times for the needs of the church.
So in both American Guam and in Japanese Saipan, the Spanish priests looked for Sisters.
The difference was that the American Navy on Guam blocked the arrival of Catholic Sisters, but the Japanese Government in Saipan, who weren't even Christian, gave Catholic Sisters a warm welcome.
IN BOTH CASES, SPANISH MISSIONARIES WERE POLITICALLY NEUTRAL
In the 1920s, when the Spanish Jesuits in Saipan looked for Sisters and the Spanish Capuchins in Guam did the same, Spanish Sisters was the original thought.
Spain by that time was no longer a world power, having been defeated by the US in 1898 and having lost almost all of its Latin American territories even before that. Therefore, in the 1920s, neither the Japanese nor the Americans had a reason to fear Spanish missionaries working in the Marianas, who might represent a foreign power at odds with Japan or the US.
Besides not being a political threat to the colonial governments, Spanish Sisters could work well with Spanish priests and brothers.
And so the Japanese welcomed the Spanish Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz into Saipan in 1928. These were Sisters straight from Spain. The Japanese saw the Sisters as a good influence on the people of Saipan. The Sisters wouldn't compete with the Japanese public schools for the Chamorros and Carolinians either, not that the Japanese sought to give the islanders a complete education anyway. Schools for the island children went up only to a certain point. Only the more promising native students were given more educational opportunities, with the main idea being that they would become good Japanese.
A MERCEDARIAN CONDUCTING CHOIR PRACTICE IN SAIPAN
ON GUAM, THE ISSUE WAS DIFFERENT
On American Guam, however, the idea of bringing in Catholic Sisters was totally opposed by the US Navy.
The main reason for this was that, on Guam, Catholic schools were hoped to be opened, and those Catholic schools would compete with the government's public schools. Being strongly Catholic, many parents, especially the higher status ones, would favor sending their children to a Catholic school more than to a government one. The Navy wanted to Americanize the younger Chamorros already by the 1920s, and the Navy thought that Catholic Sisters, especially non-American ones, would slow down the Americanization process. The Navy already felt that was true with the Spanish priests, and had them slowly replaced with American priests in the late 1930s.
Ironically, the Navy also feared that Catholic Sisters would be a financial drain on the people of Guam since the people would have to financially support the Sisters. But if the Sisters could be allowed to charge tuition at their schools, there would have been less need to rely on the charity of the people.
AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF SISTERS
THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY
The Spanish Capuchins on Guam, sensing that the US Navy feared even more Spanish missionaries on Guam, turned to a group of Sisters who were international in nature, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM). Founded in India by a French Sister, the FMM Sisters had spread to various countries of the world by the 1920s. They were in the Philippines at the time the Spanish Capuchins on Guam were looking for Sisters.
A handful of Sisters of different nationalities, but all speaking English to some degree, were selected for Guam. But the US Navy put up a roadblock. No Sister would be allowed passage to Guam without first passing an English test. Then, when the Sisters passed the test, a new qualification was added. The Sisters must not only speak English well, but also speak it without an accent.
What accent? Did it have to be an American accent? And if so, which American accent?
So an Australian or Irish Sister, whose mother tongue was English, would fail. But what about a Bostonian accent? Or did it have to be a Wisconsin one?
The requirement was a pretext for turning down all the Sisters from sailing for Guam. A Navy examiner in Manila tested the Sisters for accents and they all failed.
It was the one major defect of the Guam Catholic Mission, so said some Spanish missionaries. The Church on Guam had no religious schools and so Sisters.
So the Americans, who are Christian of one sort or another, denied Guam Catholic Sisters, but the non-Christian Japanese allowed them in Saipan. When Japan knew it would enter into war with the US in the 1940s, the Japanese then began to restrict the activities of the Spanish Sisters in Saipan.
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