St Mary's Seminary in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand, was established in 1850 by New Zealand's first Catholic bishop, Jean Baptiste François Pompallier. It operated until 1869.Good Shepherd College website, ''Our History''
(retrieved 6 December 2011) From his arrival in 1838, Pompallier had worked energetically to train priests locally for his new mission. In April 1850 he returned from a trip to Europe with ten

seminarian A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...

s and established a

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...

in Auckland to complete their formation.Michael King, ''God's Farthest Outpost: A History Of Catholics In New Zealand'', Penguin Books, Auckland, 1997, p. 73. The completion of the training of the new seminarians was carried out quickly so that within five weeks all but one of them were ordained. The seminary, which he named "St Mary's College", had Pompallier's

Vicar General A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ...

the Rev. The Reverend is an honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. ''The Reverend'' is correctly ...

Louis Rozet, S.M., as its first

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. It was first established on the North Shore of Auckland but was moved across

Waitematā Harbour Waitematā Harbour is the main access by sea to Auckland, New Zealand. For this reason it is often referred to as Auckland Harbour, despite the fact that it is one of two harbours adjoining the city. The harbour forms the northern and easter ...

to Ponsonby in 1852. The original seminary site is now occupied by St Joseph's Catholic School. The Seminary survived for 19 years, until Pompallier retired and left New Zealand in 1869. St Mary's Seminary educated at least twenty-four priests, all of them European and some of them already part-trained in Ireland or France. The college also educated many Māori

catechist Catechesis (; from Greek: , "instruction by word of mouth", generally "instruction") is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the ...

s, some of whom were encouraged to stay on for training for the priesthood. One, Keremeti Pine from

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, was even sent to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, where for three years among

s from Africa and Asia, he spoke Latin and passable Italian. However, no Māori candidate for the priesthood was ordained at this time. The Māori catechists, however, proved to be the backbone of the development of the Catholic faith among the Māori during the remaining decades of the 19th century.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:St Mary's Seminary Educational institutions established in 1850 Seminaries and theological colleges in New Zealand Catholic universities and colleges in New Zealand Christianity in Auckland Educational institutions disestablished in 1869 Former theological colleges Education in Auckland Defunct universities and colleges in New Zealand Buildings and structures in Auckland 1850 establishments in New Zealand 1869 disestablishments in New Zealand

See also

References