THE CATHOLIC MAORIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 3, 10 May 1889, Page 29

THE CATHOLIC MAORIS.

(From the Catholic Household.')

The; following extract from a letter received from Father Madan will give some idea of the efforts dow being made to revive and intensify the faith of the Catholic Maoris of New Zealand, who were first converted to Catholicity some forty years ago by French Marist Fathers, and have ever since continued wonderfully attached to it, although for years deprived of the ministration of a priest until the close of 1886, when Father Madan and Father Becker from St. Joseph's College, Millhill, London, were sent out to assume the apostolate amongst this interesting race. " The Dominican ' Rosary ' comes in very useful, giving me stories to tell the Maori. We are very busy passing tbe new edition of tbe Maori prayer-book through the Press ; and adding to it the Latin of the Mass and ssveral devotions not iv tbe old one— as the Seven Joys, etc., of St Joseph, Litany of the Saints, instructions for the List Sacraments, and some additional hymns. All the old copies had just run out on our arrival, and we have nothing to give the younger Maori now growing up, nor the ' enquirers ' and catechu* mens. In some settlements it had gone so far that, the few copies of the Catholic prayer-book having got broken and lost, they had taken o say the Protestant prayers out of a prayer-book given them ; and they, innocently supposing that it was the same, owirg to the " Our Father" and the" Credo " being found in it, took to them permanently. ' Broken the Book, broken the Church,' said one of them to me in their expressive idiom. They said they would pray again the Catholic prayers if we gave them books. It will be out by Easter, I hope. From this you will also see bow the absence of priests has been tbe cause of the loss of the proper idea of the position of the M>SB and Sacramentß in the work of the Catholic Church, and how common p ayers — or, rather, prayers in common— is, in cases, the prominent feature of their Catholic life ; and thus not wholly different exteroally to the Protestant life, barring Rosaries and medals, which are the distintive mark". We had a grand funeral a little while ago, which so impressed the Maoris that they had a grand meeting afterwards, and they determined to try and live better livep, sj as to bo worthy themselves to be buried in such state — a cuiious motive ! In another settlement the Catholics would not allow the Mormon ministers to say their prayers in any of their whares, telling them to say them outside."