Sisters, family, friends and parishioners gathered on Sunday 8 January – the Feast of the Epiphany – in the Petone Church of the Sacred Heart, to celebrate with Sr Annette Young her 60 years of faithful service as a Sister of Our Lady of the Missions.
When the Tararua District township of Eketāhuna marked 150 years since its establishment over the weekend of 11–12 March 2023, local parishioners at Sacred Heart Church registered their Sunday Eucharist as an event for this civic occasion. Some who gathered could trace their family line to the original Scandinavian settlers in the area.
A parishioner’s random dare placed on the Catholic Parish of Whanganui’s Facebook page, under the Palmerston North diocesan prayer for those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, snowballed into three other parishioners coming forward to organise a fundraising garage sale. These people needed money as well as prayer they figured.
Mikaele (Mika) Teofilo was farewelled at a morning tea function hosted by the Archdiocese of Wellington in February, after serving 13 years as the Lay Pastoral Leader of the Samoan Chaplaincy. His chaplaincy comprised 12 communities with over 800 members in the archdiocese.
The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Committee for Interfaith Relations (NZCBCIR) met in Palmerston North on 4 and 5 March.
Every diocese in Aotearoa New Zealand has a representative on this committee. Each representative is member of their local Interfaith Council, which all have representatives from different religious traditions. Bishop Michael Dooley of Dunedin liaises on behalf of NZCBCIR with the New Zealand Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
More than 50 participants from the archdiocese were invited to attend a safeguarding formation day in Wellington last month to learn more about safeguarding leadership within Church communities.
On Good Shepherd Sunday, 30 April 2023, the fourth Sunday of Easter, we are invited to pray for those called to serve through priestly vocation. In the Gospel reading for the day (Jn 10:1-10) Christ is described as the ‘Good Shepherd’ who lays down his life for his sheep. The day also marks the beginning of our National Vocations Awareness Week.
More than 120 people attended the annual Waitangi Day Mass at St Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington, on 6 February. In his homily, Cardinal John Dew said the Mass was ‘to pray for this land and all who dwell here under the guardianship of the Treaty’.
‘What is the relationship between ecology and evangelisation?’ Pope Francis asks in The Letter – a message for our Earth, a recently released film about climate action leaders who journey to Rome to meet the Pope to discuss with him his encyclical letter Laudato si’.
A Justice Peace Development and Ecology Commission (JPDEC) is a commission appointed by the bishop in each diocese to promote concerns about justice, peace, development and ecology in line with the Gospel.