The first Catholic missionaries to Hawaii, three priests of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Society of Picpus), arrived in Honolulu from France on July 7, 1827.

Apostolic prefect Alexis Bachelot celebrated the first recorded Catholic Mass on Hawaiian soil on July 14 in a grass hut on a rented lot.

[1] On August 30, 1827, the missionaries acquired a royal land grant from 14-year-old King Kamehameha III with the help from the Catholic governor of Oahu, high chief Boki.

[1] Construction continued after groundbreaking with native Hawaiian volunteers harvesting blocks of coral from the shores of Ala Moana, Kakaʻako, and Waikīkī.

Maigret had built the first domed bell tower in the Hawaiian Islands, but he would later replace it with a wooden spire topped with a globus cruciger and a stationary rooster finial in 1866, often mistaken for a weather vane.

[14] Thirty-six statuettes of the saints were placed above the gallery overlooking the nave partly as spite towards the Congregationalists and Presbyterians who accused Catholics of idolatry.

Gulstan Ropert dedicated a large bronze statue of Our Lady of Peace, a recreation of an original 16th century wooden carving still venerated by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in their Paris convent.

The Italian government presented a gift of a new Carrara marble altar with statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, in anticipation for the celebration of the centennial of the arrival of the first Roman Catholic missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands.

The wooden crucifix was removed and replaced with one made of marble, and behind it, the Calvary scene was painted over and a simple fleur-de-lis patterned wallpaper was added.

A gothic tester (or "baldachin") was positioned above the high altar to match the canopy over the cathedra, then a bronze tabernacle and communion rails were fitted.

These ideas, which claimed to follow the "spirit of the council," inaugurated controversial changes in the architectural standards of churches worldwide, which some Catholics dub a "wreckovation".

Joseph Anthony Ferrario, the third bishop of the diocese, successfully petitioned Pope John Paul II to elevate Saint Theresa Catholic Church to a co-cathedral in 1984.

In 2010, a $15M campaign was initiated by the fifth and current bishop, Clarence Richard Silva, to renovate the cathedral emulating the appearance of the later 1800s during the time of Damien de Veuster.

The "renewal" project also includes installing replica oil-paintings of the Stations of the Cross that were present in the cathedral during the time period, "oil lamp" chandeliers, and confessionals.

[18][19] By 2018, at the hundred seventy-fifth anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral, Silva removed the screen and returned the altar back to an extensively renovated sanctuary area.

A few years later, the pillars were repaired and replastered then repainted to mimic marbled stone, and new paintings of saints Damien and Marianne were placed in the sanctuary wall above the high altar.

The cathedral is reminder of the great religious struggles that took place in the Hawaiian Kingdom between 1820 and 1850, and as a symbol of its final acceptance of the Catholic Church.

Following the Requiem Mass (funeral) of Bishop Louis-Désiré Maigret in 1882, his body was carried in procession to the King Street Cemetery but was not buried there.

[31][32] Pope Francis, through the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, conferred the title of Minor Basilica upon the Cathedral on May 10, 2014, the liturgical memorial of St. Damien.

The campus includes the Diocesan Chancery which houses the offices of the bishop and vicar general, as well as the Hawaiʻi Catholic Herald newspaper.

The same high-rise building also houses the rectory, the office and residence of the rector, the parochial vicar and other priests serving the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.