  For a family of spherical minimal catenoids C_a in the hyperbolic 3-space,
there exist two constants 0<a_c<a_l such that the following are true: (1) C_a
is an unstable minimal surface with index one if a<a_c, (2) C_a is a stable
minimal surface if a>=a_c, and (3) C_a is a least area minimal surface in the
sense of Meeks-Yau if a>=a_l.
