AUCKLAND A projected record intake of new seminarians next year is set to fill Holy Cross Seminary in Ponsonby to near capacity. While welcoming the anticipated growth, seminary authorities are actively investigating options should accommodation capacity be exceeded in 2011 or beyond.
NZ Catholic understands up to 14 new seminarians will enter next year. Thats on top of a large intake this year when seminarian numbers almost doubled.
Seminary rector Fr Philip Handforth told NZ Catholic that only one out of 12 accommodation units at the seminary will be rented out in 2010. In recent years, up to five units have been let in year-long tenancies.
Fr Handforth said the growth is encouraging.
Its more important that we have seminarians than we have income from the units, he said.
Bishop of Auckland Patrick Dunn said one factor in the upswing is that men are coming from the very migrant communities that are bringing such life to our parishes.
I understand that next year the student body will include men from Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines and India along with Kiwis, Bishop Dunn said.
The bishop estimates that five or more of the seminarians will have English as a second language as happens in many parishes.
The accommodation worry is a wonderful predicament for us to be facing, Bishop Dunn said.
Just a few years ago we were wondering how low the numbers would go before we could not longer justify having a New Zealand-based seminary. Now we are worrying about outgrowing our accommodation.
The bishop said there is no doubt that success breeds success in the sense that growing numbers generate enthusiasm which in itself attracts more students.
But one key challenge the Church in New Zealand still faces is evangelisation of Kiwis [meaning] those born and raised in New Zealand. We need to find new ways to proclaim the Gospel to them, to win them for Christ, and to help them discern their own vocations as his disciples.
Bishop Dunn said we have the sense the Holy Spirit is still at work renewing the face of the earth, and the face of our Church.
Young men involved in Church life are conscious of the need for priestly, religious and missionary vocations at this time in history, he said.