The Society of Mary (commonly known as the Marist Fathers) [SM] was founded by Father Jean Claude Colin in Lyon France in 1836. Pope Gregory XVI commissioned the Society to bring Catholicism to the Western Pacific.
As the first Catholic missionaries to arrive in New Zealand, the early history of the Society in New Zealand is inextricably entwined with the arrival of Catholicism.
The Society of Mary comprises ordained priests and professed brothers, and is not to be confused with the Marist teaching brothers (FMS) founded by a Marist Priest, Saint Marcellin Champagnat SM. They are a separate congregation, which arrived later in the 19th century to teach in primary and secondary schools throughout New Zealand.
Bishop Pompallier & the early Marists
Protestant missionaries were already established in the territory which the Vatican called the “Vicariate Apostolic of Western Oceania”.
Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, as Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania, and the first group of Marist priests and brothers set out from France on the Delphine in 1836 as the first Catholic missionaries. Fr Pierre Bataillon and Br Joseph-Xavier Luzy were set down at Wallis. St Peter Chanel and Br Marie-Nizier Delorme stayed at Futuna. On the voyage Fr Claude Bret died.
Fr Catherin Servant and Br Michel Colombon were the first Marists to arrive in New Zealand with Pompallier in early 1838, where they had to quickly learn Māori and English. Arriving in the Hokianga, they soon moved across to the Bay of Islands. Servant was present with Bishop Pompallier at the negotiations prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, where Pompallier was responsible for gaining religious freedom for all in New Zealand.
In all, in the period 1838-1843 saw 37 members of the Society of Mary arrive in New Zealand.
Two Marists had set out for Wellington in 1842 but they were lost at sea on the East Coast. A lone Capuchin priest, Fr Jeremiah O’Reily, who had arrived in Wellington in 1843 as personal chaplain to the Fitzgerald family, saw his office widen to attend to the needs of the Catholics among New Zealand Company migrants.
In 1844 Pompallier appointed Fr Jean-Baptiste Comte to Wellington to look after the French at Akaroa, and Māori. A mission to Māori was started in Ōtaki.
Akaroa, which had seen the first Marists in 1840, and remains today New Zealand’s only French settlement, was a difficult mission. Comte, Fr Jean Tripe and Br Florentin Françon returned north after becoming frustrated in 1842. Fr Antoine Séon, Br Euloge Chabany and Fr Jean-Simon Bernard did not last much longer when sent there in 1850.
Bishop Pompallier & the early Marists
The Diocese of Wellington
Over time, however, differences over authority developed between Pompallier and Colin, the Superior General of the Society.
In 1848 the Vatican formally divided the country into two dioceses, Auckland where Pompallier would remain, and Wellington where the Marists would be based under Bishop Philippe Viard. The Diocese of Wellington comprised the southern half of the North Island and all the South Island.
The Marists moved to the Diocese of Wellington in 1850 and again implanted the Church in local areas. By the mid-1850s, the church was established in Nelson, Whanganui, Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Hawkes Bay. Periodic visits were made to the South Island, the Manawatu, Taranaki and the Wairarapa.
The mission in Hawkes Bay was founded in 1851 by Fr Jean Lampila, Brs Basile Monchalin and Florentin Françon. The Mission Estate Winery dates from this time.
45.1032a St Mary’s Church and school, Nelson c.1864
The Nelson mission at the top of the South Island was established in 1850 by Fr Antoine Marie Garin and Br Claude-Marie Bertrand, and included Marlborough until 1864 when Blenheim received its first resident priest.
Francis Redwood, the son of English immigrants, was one of Garin and Br Claude-Marie’s first pupils at what became a famous school in Nelson. Recognising his talent, Redwood was sent by Garin and his parents in 1854 to study in France and later Ireland. He became a Marist priest. When Bishop Viard died, Redwood succeeded him as second Bishop of Wellington.
Viard sent newly arrived Fr Jean-Baptiste Chataigner to Christchurch in 1860 and within a year Fr Claude Chervier joined him. Other missions fanned out over the Canterbury plains and finally a mission that was to last in Akaroa was established. In 1869 Fr Chataigner moved south to Timaru and thus the South Canterbury mission was begun.
While Viard had sent some itinerant diocesan priests to the West Coast area, they mostly got into strife so in 1868 he replaced them with Fr Aimé Martin and later additional Marists.
On his one and only ad limina visit to Rome, Viard asked for his territory to be divided. So, in 1869 Bishop Patrick Moran was translated from the Vicariate Apostolic of Cape of Good Hope, Eastern District in South Africa to be the first Bishop of the Diocese of Dunedin, which covers Otago and Southland. Fr Delphin Moreau had been the first resident missionary there.
Between 1857 and 1878, 24 French Marists and 12 Irish Marists came to the New Zealand mission. Gradually Marists from England and Ireland became more numerous in the 1880s and 1890s.
In 1887, the Vatican further divided the Diocese of Wellington, carving Canterbury and the West Coast of the South Island into the new Diocese of Christchurch. The first bishop was John Grimes, an English Marist. At the same time Redwood became an Archbishop and Wellington, the Archdiocese. Thus, the two central dioceses were Marist-oriented and the northern and southern dioceses, Auckland and Dunedin, were under diocesan bishops.
In 1889 New Zealand was erected as a Province of the Society of Mary and Fr Jean Leterrier arrived to be the first provincial. By that time, as well as establishing the church for Māori and settlers, Marists were involved in many different works: Formation of new recruits, Education, Retreats and Mission preaching.
The Mission Among Māori
A94.97.538 All modes of transport were used to reach isolated settlements. Fr Gus Venning was the first New Zealand-born Marist appointed to the Māori Mission.
The Marist presence in New Zealand was initially a mission to Māori. With the increasing arrival of European settlers and soldiers (many of whom were Irish Catholics), the priests started to minister to the spiritual needs of Europeans.
In some places, particular Marists carried on the mission among Māori often against great odds; some being particularly successful. However, there was a general belief that Māori were dying out. After pleading with the Marist authorities by Suzanne Aubert, the founder of the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion, further Marists arrived from France specifically to minister to Māori from 1879 until the early 1900s.
Redwood and, later, Archbishop Thomas O’Shea were somewhat limited in their support for the mission among Māori.
From 1918, New Zealand-born Marists became involved in the Māori Mission, with its name changing to Māori Pastoral Care in 1980s. The first Catholic Māori bishop, Max Takuira Mariu sm was ordained on 19 March 1988.
Over time, the various mission stations to Māori and to settlers became parishes. Most were handed over to a growing number of local clergy. Some parishes were designated “Marist” by Roman authorities and entrusted to the Society “in perpetuity”.
As the population grew in the north, the Diocese of Auckland became short of clergy, so in 1924 Bishop Henry Cleary invited the Society to staff parishes at Mount Albert and Whangārei.
St Patrick’s College Wellington, building demolished in 1980
Education Ministry
Redwood greatly valued his Marist education in Nelson, France and Ireland and though most mission stations/parishes offered primary schooling, he was determined to see secondary schools. In 1885, St Patrick’s College, Wellington opened and thus an apostolate in secondary education was begun. The first teachers at St Patrick’s were Irish Marists from St Mary’s College at Dundalk.
The Marists played a major role in the education of young Catholics in New Zealand, establishing eight colleges:
- St Patrick’s College Wellington, founded in 1885
- St Bede’s College Christchurch, 1911
- St Patrick’s College Silverstream, 1931
- St Patrick’s High School Timaru, 1938 (now Roncalli College)
- St John’s College Hastings, 1941
- St Augustine’s College Whanganui, 1944 (now Cullinane College)
- Hato Pāora College Feilding, 1947
- Pompallier College Whangārei, 1971
For example, in 1945 the existing six colleges were educating 1155 pupils with 57 Marist staff. Fifty years later following integration into the state education sector, the eight colleges were educating 3674 pupils with about 30 Marist staff and about nine times as many lay staff.
An Australian Connection
There were moments of trans-Tasman cooperation too. A number of Australians joined the New Zealand Province.
The mission band’s first venture was to Tasmania in 1911 with further missions being given later in the decade in New South Wales and Queensland.
In 1925, the parishes of St Patrick’s, Church Hill, and Holy Name of Mary, Hunters Hill in Sydney and Gladstone, Queensland were incorporated into the New Zealand Province. Glenlyon, Queensland became the Australian base for a mission band. When the Province of Australia was set up in 1938 some Kiwis stayed in the new province.
Formation of Priests & Brothers
40.641 Students praying at the statue of Our Lady, Mount St Mary’s Seminary [1950s]
Formation of future Marist priests started in Wellington in 1889. It moved a year later to Meeanee in Hawkes Bay.
Fr David Kennedy, who taught at the seminary between 1893 and 1909, wrote a textbook called Natural Philosophy for Junior Students. From its proceeds (it ran to ten editions by 1926), he bought telescopes and established an astronomical observatory. His students took some of the world’s clearest photographs of Halley’s Comet in 1910. In his last four years there, he also operated a Meteorological Station he trained the Reverend Daniel Bates, the New Zealand Government’s first Meteorologist.
In late 1910, after frequent flooding, buildings were cut into sections and were dragged by traction engine onto the hillside at Greenmeadows, Mount St Mary’s.
This was a great site but the Napier Earthquake on 3 February 1931 claimed the lives of seven students and two priests, crushed by collapsing stone in the chapel. A lady visiting the seminary also died in the earthquake.
The Code of Canon Law introduced in 1917 made it imperative that a separate novitiate be founded. Highden at Awahuri near Palmerston North was established with the first group of novices training there in 1924. Previously the novitiate had been held in the seminary where novices lived as a separate group.
Formation at Greenmeadows was all encompassing. Apart from “camping” in holiday times at Waimarama, a beach south of Hasting, and a couple of trips home during one’s course at Mount St Mary’s, it was fairly enclosed.
A.059.04.03 Grape picking, 1929
There are stories of saints and tyrants, grape-picking, the wonderful and hardworking brothers, funny tales and legends that grow in the telling. In 1990 seminary formation moved to Auckland and is now mainly based internationally.
An Outward View
In 1928 the Province sent its first missionary to Samoa, Fr John Fotheringham. Over the years a significant number followed to Samoa and elsewhere throughout the Pacific. Visiting Oceanian bishops and holidaying missionaries encouraged volunteers, and later the Mission Society at Greenmeadows kept the prospect of working as missionaries in the hearts of many.
The early death of Fr Emmet McHardy (d. 1933), who had worked on Bougainville, St Peter Chanel and the early Marists inspired many to devote their lives to Western Oceania, at that time synonymous with the Foreign Missions.
When in more recent years Pakistan, South America, East Africa, the Philippines, North Dakota and Thailand opened up as Mission fields there were nearly always New Zealand Marists involved.
Spirituality Ministry & Parish Missions
Archbishop Redwood and Marists of his time began the Parish Mission ministry. Wearing a blue cape, sash and preaching cross, Parish Missioners were an imposing lot.
In 1909 the first Mission band formed, eventually residing in Temuka. From 1922, the mission house was Wellington-based, initially at Eccleston Hill, at Island Bay and then what is now called Marist Centre (Wellington). Other houses were opened in Auckland and in Australia.
From the first sortie into Tasmania in 1911, a great number of missions were carried out in Australia and later, in the Pacific Islands. Retreats to religious also became a feature of the Mission Band well into 1980s.
Futuna Retreat House in Wellington began in 1947 and ran for fifty-three years. Its architecturally significant chapel, designed by architect, John Scott, and built by Society of Mary Brothers in 1960-1961 was central to the place and is preserved as an architectural gem.
Religious and priests came for retreats and spiritual direction. Annual Marist retreats were regularly held at Futuna. Thousands of men and later women spent a weekend there as the team presented a new theme each year. It was a huge success in the Archdiocese.
A band of brothers cooked, cleaned and welcomed retreatants – working together with lay staff and volunteers.
In 2000 Futuna was sold and the team began in Thorndon the retreat and spirituality centre called Emmaus, later renamed Pā Maria.
Many Ministry Choices
Other ministries have always been part of the Province.
New Zealand Marists served as military chaplains. Others have been chaplains to prisons, alcoholics, hospitals, schools, emergency responders and to other religious congregations.
The Marist Messenger, published 1929-2023, had a wide circulation both locally and abroad.
The Third Order of Mary, restructured and renamed Marist Laity, and Marian Mothers groups can be found throughout New Zealand.
Since the 1990s there has been an overhaul of institutions, schools, formation, houses and community life, and a significant restructuring to whom and where Marists minister. Yet despite the increasing age of the members of the New Zealand Province, many of its younger men still give themselves generously to the Society’s mission districts in other parts of the world. New ministries have opened up in response to a culture that means many people rarely attend church.