The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation is celebrated on 1 September. The ecumenical Christian celebration of the Season of Creation is convened each year to pray and respond to the cry of Creation, between 1 September, the World Day of Prayer for Creation, and 4 October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
Every year since 1975 New Zealand has marked Māori Language Week as a time for all New Zealanders to celebrate te reo Māori – the Māori language – and to use more Māori phrases in everyday life. In 2024, Māori Language Week runs from 14–21 September.
Caritas’ Social Justice Week 2024 is coming up and this year it runs from 8–14 September. During this week, Caritas invites you to join Catholic parishes and schools across New Zealand in exploring how we can give effect to peace and forgiveness in our lives. We have produced a range of resources for parishes and schools to help get involved with Social Justice week 2024.
At the end of this month I will be returning to Rome for the second session of the Synod on Synodality. Those who attended last year are required to be there again. It will be good to reconnect with people I met last year and with whom I spent the month in prayer, discernment and discussion. Fr Dennis Nacorda from the parish of Wairarapa is also attending.
The latest version of WelCom is available to read here
The long-running Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was made public after being formally tabled in Parliament on 24 July 2024.
The Royal Commission spent six years holding hearings and investigating events from 1950 until the present day.
On July 25 2024, Palmerston North diocesan and parish staff and local clergy gathered to honour Bishop Owen Dolan’s extraordinary 70th anniversary of priesthood.
An innovative app designed by a group of Sacred Heart College Napier business students is poised to revolutionise the path for students to gain a restricted driver’s licence. The students are collaborating with Victoria University of Wellington to develop the app.
This month our Hīkoi Whakapono | Journey of Faith, takes us to the parish of St Mary of the Angels Central Wellington. The parish includes St Mary of the Angels Church on Boulcott St, one of the major churches of the city, and St Joseph Church, Mt Victoria.
The doors of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St Mary His Mother were opened once again this month for all the people of the Archdiocese of Wellington and beyond to return to their place of worship.