THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Tablet, 24 May 1917, Page 41

THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND

HISTORICAL NOTES. Not the/ least among the important decisions arrived at during the recent conference at Auckland of the Diocesan Teachers' Institute was the founding of the Catholic Historical Association. f With a view to assisting in the laudable pursuits of this necessary development in the Church life of our Dominion, we have decided to set apart space, as occasion requires, for the publication of early records and historical gleanings. Suitable information, in the form of notes or newspaper cuttings, if sent to the Tablet office, will gain insertion under the above heading. The late Hon. Dr. McNab, from early records in his possession, shortly before his death established the fact that the first clergyman to come N.Z. was not, as erroneously supposed, the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who first landed in New Zealand in 1814, but a French Catholic priest, who accompanied De. Surville in command of the French ship, St. Jean Baptiste, which came to New Zealand in 1769, and lay at anchor in Doubtless Bay for some time. This was forty-five years before Marsden's first arrival. The foregoing does not quite bear out the statement contained in Mrs. E. M. Dunlop's work, A Missionary Pioneer, that "Posterity hails Samuel Marsden as the Apostle of New Zealand." A notable collection that in after years will be of great historical value is being made in connection with the reference section of the Dunedin Public Library. This refers to the " Annuals" issued by the various colleges and secondary schools of the Dominion. Comprised in this collection are probably all the successive numbers of St. Patrick's College magazine (Wellington), the Sacred Heart College magazine (Auckland), and the several annuals published by the Dominican Nuns of St. Dominic's College, Dunedin.

In the course of a lengthy obituary of the late Father J. F. O’Donnell, whose much lamented death occurred at Queenstown recently, the W ala tip Mail gives the following particulars regarding the historical origin of the parochial district of which the departed priest was the much loved and devoted pastor: —“lie came to New Zealand in 1889 with the late Bishop Moran (then returning from a recruiting visit to Ireland), and with Father Murphy (Riverton), Father O’Neill (Winton), Father McMullan (Ranfurly), and Father Lynch (Raes Bush). In the same year deceased was appointed curate to Father O’Neill, Milton. In 1893 Father O’Donnell went to Palmerston, where he remained till October, 1896. when he came to Queenstown, succeeding Dean Burke, now of Invercargill. After being in charge of Queenstowp for three years, the Arrowtown and Queenstown portions of the district were merged into one parish, the late Father O’Donnell then taking over the extra duties from Father Keenan. Were it not that the late Father O’Donnell was a zealous and indefatigable worker, he could not have covered a field so far-reaching as the Wakatipu. But nothing was impossible with him. He loved his work and his people, and in return was beloved of them. His solicitude for the spiritual and moral welfare of the children of the parish- was well known. Many a time has he travelled to the most out-of-the-way places in the district in. order-to give religious instruction to a solitary child.”

. .I b. 77~ ' Far away as South Africa is, there is still a certain affinity between : that great country and the diocese of Dunedin. It will be remembered that the late Dr. Moran, first Bishop of the southern diocese, was, prior to being transferred to this newly-founded episcopal see, VicarApostolic of Grahamstown, South Africa. The March, 1917, number of the Catholic Magazine of South Africa, referring to the occasional sermon preached by Bishop McSherry in connection with the ceremonies commemorative of- the diamond jubilee of the Mission of Fort Beaufort, gave the following extract from a manuscript written by Bishop Moran:—“ 1857; 28 January, Bishop Moran, assisted by Rev. James O’Connell, pastor; Rev. James Watkins, K.W.T., Rev. James D. Richards, and Rev. John Quinn, of Grahamstown, and Rev. John Joseph De Sany, of Uitenhage, dedicated the new Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel, at Fort Beaufort. Continuing to read from the Chronicon of the Eastern Province (states the article), Bishop McSherry said: In the same page in which Bishop Moran records that event, he gives a summary of the ecclesiastical establishment under his charge. * There were then,’ he writes, seven priests, and in the Grahamstown Convent six nuns teaching 87 children, of whom twelve were orphans of the military settlers (principally Irish) massacred by the Kaffirs at Woburn, Ely, Auckland, and Juanasberg in this very neighborhood. These orphans were supported almost entirely by the charity of the Assumption Nuns. There were five places of worship called churches, the priests taught school in five missions. The schoolrooms were wretched structures, and the missionaries were miserably lodged.’ ”