Roma is a settlement under the Manonyane Community Council in the Maseru District of Lesotho, some 34 kilometers southeast of Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The Roma valley is broad and fertile, and is surrounded by sandstone cliffs topped to the East by basalt mountains which provide magnificent scenery. Founded in 1862 by Roman Catholic missionaries in the valley known as Tloutle, Roma now has three seminaries and various novitiates, and they began the institution that became the National University of Lesotho. The surrounding area has become quite densely populated and is a significant residential area, recently gaining street lights on the main road. There are many dinosaur footprints in the area, some within the National University of Lesotho, and others on Roma Plateau.

Some years ago the US Peace Corps ran its training programmes in Roma, and a local steep prominent mountain, Makhetha, is still referred to as Peace Corps Mountain, as an ascent was traditionally part of their programme.

Lesotho (ⁱ/lɨˈsuːtuː/ li-SOO-too), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, completely surrounded by its only neighboring country, the Republic of South Africa. It is just over 30,000 km² (11,583 sq mi) in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Lesotho translates roughly into the land of the people who speak Sesotho. About 40% of the population live below the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were Khoisan hunter-gatherers. They were largely replaced by Wasja-speaking tribes during Bantu migrations. The Sotho-Tswana people colonized the general region of South Africa between the 3rd and 11th centuries.

The present Lesotho (then called Basutoland) emerged as a single polity under king Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1821 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.^{[citation needed]}

Blessed Joseph Gérard, OMI (March 12, 1831-May 29, 1914) was a French Catholic missionary who chiefly worked among the Basotho people of modern day Lesotho and the Free State province of South Africa. He was born in Bouxières-aux-Chênes, in the Diocese of Nancy and received his religious training from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, whom he joined at the age of twenty. He wasn't particularly gifted academically, but was quick at learning languages, which would later help him in learning the Zulu and Sesotho languages he used for his missionary work. Gérard moved to South Africa in 1853, and never returned to his home country again.

Gérard was ordained as a priest at Pietermaritzburg in 1854. He started his work as a missionary among the Zulus in the Vicariate of Natal, but met with little progress there. In 1862 he joined Father François Allard, the Bishop of Natal, in starting the first Catholic mission in Lesotho—there already was a Protestant congregation founded by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. With permission from the Basotho chief Moshoeshoe I, they founded the Motse-oa-'M'a-Jesu (Village of the Mother of Jesus) mission around 32 kilometers (20 mi) south of Thaba Bosiu, at the site of present day Roma. By all accounts, Gérard was well respected by Moshoeshoe for remaining in the country during the Free State-Basotho Wars, and it has been said that it was at Gérard's encouragement that the chief sought British intervention at the end of the conflict. However, Gérard's missionary work still progressed slowly: by the end of 1879, there were only 700 Catholics in the country.