VERY REV. DEAN BINSFELD

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1919, Page 13

VERY REV. DEAN BINSFELD

10 lu ■ '“Alfe &LI L : ~'; -y: , *lt The Very Rev. Dean Binsfeld, an : account . of whose jubilee, we : published last week, is a native of Luxemburg. .. He was born on May 12, 1834, of a family of many centuries’ standing. }He studied | first at the Royal Grand Ducal Gymnasium of Luxemburg, and afterwards at the seminary of Treves, and was ordained in that place by Archbishop Arnold! on August 27, 1859. Two years later, in June, 1861, he was professed in the Society of Mary. After working for several years in France, England, Ireland, and America, he came to New Zealand in 1869, and has worked in this country ever since. . He. has been stationed, at different times, at New Plymouth, Rangiora, Grey mouth, Meanee, Wanganui, and Nelson; but the greater part of his time was spent upon the Coast.. He,was one of the first

priests to say Mass there, and the miner who prepared the altar and served his Mass died at Green mead ow s but a few years ago, a lay Brother in the same Society as the Dean himself. In those days, the whole of the Coast was one large parish, and to visit all the “diggings” Dean Binsfeld had to make many long and perilous journeys, which often took him weeks together. He was well known everywhere upon the Coast, and there was no miner, Catholic or non-Catholic, to whom the name of “Father Binsfeld” was not familiar. The Dean belongs to a family of octogenarians. Last year one of his sisters, a nun of Belgium, died over 80 years of age, and another, who is a member of the Belgian Legion of Honor since 1910, celebrates the diamond jubilee of her profession next year.