Arsenius Walsh, SS.CC., (1804 – 14 October 1869), was an Irish Catholic priest who was among the first Roman Catholic missionaries in the Kingdom of Hawaii. He was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious institute based in Paris, better known as the "Picpus Fathers", which had been founded during the turmoil of the French Revolution. He is called the Apostle of Hawaii. The Catholic mission to Hawaii The first members of his congregation had arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 9 July 1827, under the leadership of Father Alexis Bachelot, SS.CC., named the first Prefect Apostolic for the region by the Holy See. The Picpus community, composed of both priests and lay brothers, soon began to gain converts among the Native Hawaiians. This quick success, however, sparked the opposition of the Congregationist missionaries who had arrived from the United States several years earlier and who had been embraced by the chiefs of the kingdom. Encouraged by the Protestant clergy, the chiefs passed laws which imposed heavy penalties, such as forced labor, beatings and imprisonment on their people who embraced Catholic practice. This led to a Catholic underground where the two French priests had to care for their new flock by presiding over private Masses in darkened homes and had to offer catechetical instruction for new converts in secret. The chiefs expelled the priests of the community on Christmas Eve 1831, having them transported to Lower California in Mexico, but allowed the lay brothers to stay. The priests were taken in by the Franciscans there and served at the California missions. Walsh's arrival An Irish seminarian in the Hawaiian community, Brother Columba Murphy, SS.CC., still a layman in the eyes of the government, made frequent visits to the mission, continually appraising the situation for the Fathers in Mexico. By the mid-1830s, the political climate in Hawaii had changed. Murphy went to Monterrey to encourage the two priests to return. Unable to locate them, he left a message advising them that the time was ripe. In response to this, Walsh was sent to Hawaii. Walsh, who might have been born Robert Walsh--a given name often ascribed to him—arrived in Hawaii on 4 September 1836 and established himself with the lay brothers of his congregation. His expulsion was urged by the Protestant clergy, who had the king's ear. Unlike the other Picpus Fathers, however, he