Pioneering Catholic to return, 130 years on

By ANGELA GREGORY

The founder of New Zealand Catholicism is about to return to home shores.

The remains of Jean-Baptiste Francois Pompallier, this country's first Catholic bishop, arrive in Auckland on Sunday.

The bishop's remains were exhumed from a Parisian cemetery in 1999 after years of lobbying by New Zealand Catholics, especially in the Hokianga, where he first arrived in 1838.

Since the 1970s members of the Tai Tokerau Regional Pastoral Council have expressed their desire to recognise the bishop's significance and to have his remains brought back to the country where he worked for more than 30 years.

Bishop Pompallier's legacy grew from humble beginnings in the Hokianga to nearly 500,000 Catholics in New Zealand today.

He enjoyed a close relationship with many Maori leaders.

A Requiem Mass was held at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris yesterday with Bishop Patrick Dunn, Bishop of Auckland, and the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger.

After Bishop Pompallier's remains arrive in Auckland on Sunday a powhiri will be held at Whai ora Marae at Otara.

Next Tuesday, after a hui with Ngati Whatua at Orakei Marae, the remains will be taken to St Patrick's Cathedral in Wyndham St.

A hikoi then begins from Thursday with departure to Dunedin.

Moving north from Otago, the hikoi will visit the places of the bishop's travels during his lifetime.

In April, the remains will be welcomed at Russell, the site of the Catholic mission headquarters to Western Oceania from 1839 to 1850.

Bishop Pompallier will then be interred at Motuti, in the north Hokianga, where his old church has been restored.

Born in Lyon in 1801, Pompallier was made bishop to lead the pioneering Catholic mission to Western Oceania in 1836. He left France with four priests and three brothers of the Marist Order.

The Marists, or Society of Mary, manned this mission, and are now a world order.

On December 30, 1837, he sailed for the Hokianga and arrived at the home of Thomas and Mary Poynton on January 10, 1838, celebrating his first Mass at Totara Pt on January 13.

Bishop Pompallier established mission stations at Hokianga (1838), Russell (1839), Mangakahia, Kaipara, Tauranga and Akaroa (1840), Matamata, Opotiki and Maketu (1841), Auckland and Otago (1842), Wellington (1843), and Otaki, Rotorua, Rangiaowhia and Whakatane (1844).

He was at Waitangi in February 1840 and was responsible for the 4th article of the treaty, which guaranteed all New Zealanders the right to spiritual freedom.

Bishop Pompallier returned to France in 1868 and died at Puteaux, near Paris, on December 21, 1871.