Dr Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of St Gianna Beretta Molla, will be the dinner speaker at FLI’s “Go Forward in Hope” pro-life and pro-family conference in Auckland from March 23-26.

According to Family Life International’s website, the conference is scheduled to take place at the Novotel Auckland Ellerslie.

St Gianna Molla gave her life so that her daughter, the Dr Molla who is coming to New Zealand, might live.

According to a CNS report, St Gianna Molla and her husband Pietro had three children in the 1950s.

“But in late 1961, pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, St Gianna, a paediatrician, was diagnosed with a uterine tumour. The couple refused treatment that could have harmed the unborn child. Gianna Emanuela was born in April, 1962 and her mother died one week later of an infection.”

St John Paul II beatified Gianna in 1994 and proclaimed her a saint in 2004. She is the patron saint of mothers, physicians and the unborn.

The FLI website stated that Dr Gianna Emanuela Molla works full time serving the Saint Gianna Foundation as general secretary, and is devoted to sharing the example, testimony and spirituality of her “Saint-Mum”. Formerly, Gianna Emanuela practised as a geriatrician at the Geriatric Institute, “Camillo Golgi” in Abbiategrasso, Milan. In 2003, she left her profession to care for her father Pietro until he died on April 3, 2010, on Holy Saturday, at the age of almost 98.

Dr Molla was scheduled to speak at a similar conference in Auckland in 2018, but had to withdraw at the last minute because of illness.

Among the other speakers at the 2023 conference in Auckland are Maxim Institute director Tim Wilson, immigration, refugee and human rights lawyer Richard McLeod and Human Life International president Fr Shenan Bouquet.

For more information, visit www.fli.org.nz/conference2023/

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An online, livestream event to celebrate World Marriage Day is happening on Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 7.30pm. Promoted and sponsored by
the Catholic Network of Marriage Educators, the event, called “Building a Love that Lasts”, will feature Megan and Nahum Kozak of Lighthouse
Relationships as the keynote speakers.

For the past 22 years, the Catholic Network of Marriage Educators board (CNME) has supported and promoted the annual St Valentine’s Day Mass,
celebrated in some New Zealand dioceses with the support of local (arch) diocesan staff. This year, with the uncertainty of gatherings due to the pandemic, CNME has decided to plan an online Catholic marriage enrichment event as well, which they hope will support, enrich, and encourage married
couples throughout the country. Couples will be able to view this event in their own homes.

Earlier last year, CNME and supporters of the marriage network wrote to the New Zealand bishops to ask if World Marriage Day could be added to
the NZCBC National Calendar. The bishops kindly agreed. The inclusion of this date in the National Calendar means that parishes and communities
throughout Aotearoa New Zealand will be encouraged to celebrate and support married life at their Masses on Sunday, February 13, 2022.

Resources are available at: www.nlo.org.nz/about/liturgical-calendar/
“Building a Love that Lasts” date night for couples is happening on the evening of World Marriage Day, starting at 7.30pm. The CNME board wishes to thank Hamilton diocese for hosting this event.

Save the date! Book in some intentional time as a married couple to enrich your relationship, right from the comfort of  your own home! Grab some wine
and cheese and tune in at 7.30 pm for a live talk for approximately one hour. It will suit couples who are engaged, newly married, and those married for
many years who would like to enrich their relationship on this special day. See www.cdh.org. nz/events

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Te Kupenga chief executive Dr Areti Metuamate said the move is slated for February next year, before the next school opening.

“The [Auckland] diocese, which owns this building, has given us some parameters within which we would be able to base here,” he said. “What we are going to do now is to finalise what the actual break-up of the building will look like. We have to create some office space inside.”

Dr Metuamate said the property is actually bigger that the present campus on Ponsonby Rd.

“The one that is on Ponsonby Rd [formerly Good Shepherd College] is going to be sold. That building is owned 50 per cent by the Marists and 50 per cent by the bishops,” he said.

Dr Metuamate said the Vermont St building’s structure cannot be touched, because it is a special heritage building.

The way it is laid out already lends itself to lecture rooms, he said. But there is a need to create office spaces for the staff, as well as make the basement suitable for the Colin Library’s use.

Dr Metuamate also said they are working closely with Holy Cross `Seminary.

“We want a partnership where we can share some space,” he explained. “As part of the remediation of their admin block, we are working on possibly having some office space in there. Likewise, if the seminary wants to use our lecture theatres in the evening, if there’s an event that they want to host then, of course, they can.”

He said he is working with the seminary rector to make this happen.

Programmes

Dr Metuamate said former CTC dean Fr Merv Duffy, SM, and new dean Dr John Evangelista, are working on developing new programmes that will reach out to different communities.

Their first project is a leadership programme for Catholic school principals and school leaders.

“Our leadership programme will be focused on strengthening leaders to be good Catholic leaders in schools. I really want to empower and provide support to our Catholic school principals and deputy principals, and for all these people to have the same opportunities for education and professional development that everyone else does,” he said.

He noted there is a new generation of school principals, and there is a need to support them.

“In the universities, you’re getting training in education to support you to be a teacher, to support you to become a leader in the educational context, but there’s not a Catholic element to it. Only we can really add that,” he said.

Dr Metuamate said he is also keen to develop a Māori katekita (catechist) programme, with the aim of invigorating Māori spirituality.

He said that, in the early days of the Church in Aotearoa New Zealand, the katekita were often leaders in the community, trained to lead the prayers in the Māori language, so people could participate.

Their numbers have dwindled in the intervening years.

“The role of katekita, I think, is really important, because with the limited number of Māori priests that we have now, you’re not seeing your face reflected in the people speaking, preaching and leading. Katekita is one way we could support that,” he said.

“By having more katekita around the country, I believe, that would bring more Māori people to engage heavily in the Church, [and] bring more people back to the Church, too.”

Dr Metuamate said the CTC is looking at having more in-person seminars as well, which will also be livestreamed to attract more people.

In the meantime, the National Centre for Religious Studies, under Colin McLeod, is working on the new Religious Education curriculum, and is in the process of consulting with religious educators across the country, Dr Metuamate said.

Vaccination

He also announced that the Nathaniel Centre will soon start an information campaign around vaccination.

“There’s a lot of misinformation. There [are] a lot of conspiracy theories. And there are also a lot of people who are confused,” Dr Metuamate said.

“That’s understandable, because it is a complex issue. But while it is a complex issue, we also, as a Church, have an obligation to inform people around making safe decisions, not only for themselves but for their families and communities,” he said.

Dr Metuamate said the Nathaniel Centre, under Dr John Kleinsman, is preparing information at “both ends of the scale”.

“Some will have detailed information so people can understand — how does having this vaccine impact on my faith? Are we encouraging testing on foetuses? We’ll have that material available,” he said.

He said there will also be material that will simply address the concerns of the people.

“Many people don’t want to understand the details. They only want to know: ‘Is it safe and am I going against my faith taking it?’,” he
said.

The Nathaniel Centre, the bioethics centre of the Church in New Zealand, takes the position that the research says the vaccine is safe, and that the Pope and the bishops support Catholic people getting vaccinated.

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Fr Craig Dunford inside the new St Luke’s church under construction.

But St Luke’s parish priest Fr Craig Dunford hopes to have Sunday Masses in the church for a couple of weeks before that, “just to have a bit of a test run, so to speak”.

This includes making sure all the audiovisual equipment is working ahead of the opening, he said. Fr Dunford had hoped to have parish liturgies held in the church at Easter, “but unfortunately, that has been moved now at least a week or two. So, once we get sign-off from the [Auckland] Council, we will be able to have Masses in here”.

Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn and auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen will bless the new church at the opening. Among those invited are representatives from nearby Anglican and Buddhist communities.

When NZ Catholic visited St Luke’s in mid-March, the church was a hive of activity, with work being done on the interior fit-out, the foyer and exterior aspects, such as water features and driveways.

The stained glass windows behind the sanctuary and above the foyer are stunning. Depicting the Trinity and Our Lady respectively, they were created by David Gianotti and Michael Pervan.

When asked if the new church project had been a smooth journey, Fr Dunford laughed, and said, “I don’t think building anything is a smooth journey — in the middle of Covid-19 as well, on top of it”.

The stained glass window designs for the north and south ends of St Luke’s.

“But to be honest,” he said, “it has not been as difficult as I anticipated, considering the environment we are living in. We were able to work through all alert levels, except where we locked down for level 4. We had to shut down the site. But during levels 2 and 3 we were able to still operate, and still continue the building with some limited restrictions. So there have been a few hiccups along the way, but we have worked through those, and they are normal sort of things that would go wrong in a building.”

All told, he is “delighted the way the whole thing has come together”.

“It is a beautiful building, a building that is really sacred, and it feels sacred,” Fr Dunford said.

He noted that holy items such as blessed medals, rosaries and holy pictures had been placed under the floor last year.

“It is a building that all of our community are going to be proud of and enjoy,” he added. Having the new church will be especially beneficial for the adjacent Sancta Maria Primary School, which is likely to use the building a lot. Sancta Maria Catholic College is on the same overall site.

Fr Dunford appreciates having been able to use the college hall for Sunday Masses, however, with the new church, one thing he won’t miss is having to set up the hall for Mass every week.

“I’ve spent four years setting out chairs, dragging altars . . . I’ve done both my shoulders in. The body is not as young as it used to be,” he laughed.

While he is looking forward to the opening, Fr Dunford admits to feeling “a little bit tired, if I am honest with you”.

“There have been a lot of meetings, a lot of organisational planning and decision-making. But I am really pleased with where we are. I am excited and a bit relieved for it only being another month.”

While the church will be officially opened in a few weeks, the fundraising task will continue. The building costs $10.8million and the parish is still looking to raise $2.5-2.6million. Fr Dunford said the annual fundraising goal set last year was $150,000 and they are not far off that at present, which is not bad considering Covid interruptions.

But the parish is seeking donations to pay for various items in the church and adjacent rooms. Fr Dunford said getting donors to help with the pews and floor tiles, especially, would be greatly appreciated. There will be 64 pews in the church, and a gift of $6000 is the cost of a pew. The church will also have 1135 square metres of floor — and a gift of $100 is the cost of a floor tile.

People wishing to donate can visit www.flatbushcatholicgiving.org/ donate/ Tax receipts can be issued and donors have the option of being recognised in a book of record.

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What more could a person ask for? Mass on Sunday morning and a round of golf in the afternoon, supporting a great cause that is promoted by the Nano Nagle Charitable Trust (NNCT) in Dunedin.

So it proved to be on the first Sunday in March, when the Dunedin Catholic parishes golf event, sponsored by Bishop Michael Dooley, was held at the St Clair golf course on a cloudy but pleasant afternoon.

The event was organised by LeeAnn Henry, a member of the Nano Nagle Fund Raising Group (NNFRG), and was advertised as an Ambrose, with teams of four with handicaps added together and then divided by 8 to get the team handicap.

Bishop Michael Dooley (centre, standing) at the ’19th hole’.

The clergy was represented by Bishop Dooley and by vicar general Fr Gerard Aynsley. The rest of the field was made up of interested parishioners from throughout the Dunedin area. There was a choice of playing 18 holes or just 9 holes. There were 28, mainly handicap players, who chose to play the full round, while about 12 players, who mainly had limited experience of golf, played just 9 holes.

The afternoon was an enjoyable experience. While there were certainly a few Irish names in the field, no one was prepared to say there were any Mulligans (a stroke replayed from the original spot without penalty). At least no one was prepared to confess officially to having committed the cardinal sin in golf.

NNCT committee members were on hand to ensure that participants had the opportunity to partake in a number of raffles once they returned to the clubhouse and sat down at the 19th.

Bishop Dooley officiated at the drawing of the raffles and in presenting the prizes.

The afternoon proved to be a very successful money-raiser, with just on $1300 raised through the golf and the raffles. This has been a useful boost to finances in a year where the normal NNCT fund-raising efforts have been affected by complications to do with the pandemic.

This year, and in future years, the money raised by this event will go to further the work of the NNCT, which helps to support some students in the Catholic school system who face financial challenges.

The NNCT has its financial year from April to March. As an example of what the trust support means, during this last difficult year they had distributions in July and December, 2020, which supported 55 children who met the criteria throughout New Zealand, with grants totalling $38,499 to help them stay at, and receive an education at, a Catholic school.

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Leaders in the pro-life movement say that a bill aimed at establishing 150-metre “safe areas” near abortion facilities on a case-by-case basis is an overreach, and targets behaviour which their groups don’t sanction and have not seen happen.

Parliament passed the first reading of Louisa Wall’s Contraception, Sterilisation, And Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill in a 100-15 conscience vote on March 10. The bill aims to rectify the dropping of safe area provisions during debate last year on the then-Abortion Legislation Bill, which some commentators labelled a parliamentary oversight at the time.

Ms Wall’s bill would prohibit “intimidation, interference or obstruction”, as well as “communicating with, or visually recording” a protected person — so that it would cause “emotional distress . . .”. Conviction could see a fine of up to $1000. Ms Wall said abortion is not a crime, but a health issue, and patients have rights to access this without disturbance of any kind.

Family Life International’s Michelle Kaufman said her experience in being outside abortion facilities does not align with the claims made by Ms Wall and her supporters. FLI’s protests and vigils outside abortion clinics are always done peacefully and without aggravation or force, Mrs Kaufman said.

“It should be noted that anyone who participates in 40 Days for Life, or any of FLI’s weekly prayer vigils outside abortion centres, are required to sign a statement of peace. We have very clear directives about how we expect our people to behave, always radiating the love of Christ, even in the face of opposition.”

“It has been said, often, that a woman who chooses abortion does so because she believes she has no other choice . . . I would say that freedom to offer help should never be limited, nor should the freedom to pray, or to peacefully gather,” Mrs Kaufman added.

Right to Life’s Ken Orr said that, in his 50 years of involvement with the pro-life movement, and during his involvement in many prayer vigils outside abortion facilities, he had never seen or heard of harassment or intimidation of women.

Should the bill become law, “Right to Life requests that the government produce irrefutable evidence that women are being harassed at abortion facilities [and] produce evidence that the Summary Offences Act is inadequate to deal with any civil disorders.”

A report from the Law Commission to the Minister of Justice in 2018 noted that “there are several laws in New Zealand that could address intimidating or anti-social behaviour at places where abortions occur”.

The report noted that the Law Commission “sought input from health professional bodies, abortion service providers and health practitioners about safe access zones. The majority felt that safe access zones were not needed”.

The Law Commission stated it did not suggest the introduction of safe access zones, but added that the option could be open to a Government should demonstrations “intensify” in the future.

In its report, the Law Commission also noted that any limits placed on rights enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act through the imposition of safe access zones “would need to be carefully considered to ensure they are reasonable and justified”.

Several of the speakers in the first reading in Parliament said they would support the bill at first reading, so it could go to select committee, but that freedom of speech concerns would have to be addressed in order to guarantee their continued support.

Attorney-General David Parker was one such speaker, noting that a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet of the bill indicated its provisions
that limit the freedom of expression go “further than is necessary to achieve the purpose which it seeks to achieve”. He suggested changes should be made.

Pro-life figures also expressed concern at some of the language freely expressed by pro-abortion MPs in the first reading debate. Ms Wall used the expression “condoned violence against women”. Other commentators said some of the speeches grossly mischaracterised what the pro-life movement does and is.

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Wellington Co-adjutor Archbishop Paul Martin SM

In his homily at a Mass at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Christchurch on March 19, Archbishop Martin, the apostolic administrator of Christchurch diocese, said the Year of St Joseph is a wonderful opportunity “to again fall in love with this great ancestor of our faith community”.

“We have, in this man, someone who models what faithfulness in word and deed looks like, and whose prayers for much of the ordinary things in life are so valued,” said Archbishop Martin.

Although not a lot had been written about St Joseph, modern people can relate to this saint.

“We live in a culture now when everyone is expected to do interesting and fascinating things, to have travelled the world, to have started new things, to have done surprising things that people wouldn’t know about and which are celebrated usually at the end of their life,” Archbishop Martin said.

And yet, he pointed out, most of us do not live a “spectacular” life.

“We just endeavour to do the ordinary things of life faithfully, living with an integrity between what we believe and what we do. We strive to do the day-to-day things of life well, and for us, as Christian people, we live with the hope of eternal life with God, and we prepare for that each day of our lives here on earth,” he said.

By St Joseph living out faithfully what God had planned for him — that is, being Jesus’ foster father and providing for his family — this has made St Joseph such a powerful saint in the life of the Church, reflected Archbishop Martin.

“St Joseph is the saint for living an ordinary life well,” the archbishop said. “However, if we left it there, we would be failing to see the other side of Joseph’s life and witness, which is so powerful, and that is that he was a man who was in tune with God.”

Archbishop Martin said that, when God spoke to St Joseph in his dreams, St Joseph “listened, trusted and acted on them”. The first time was when he took the Virgin Mary as his wife when she became pregnant, averting what would have been a great scandal at that time and again, when he moved the family to Egypt.

“He was a man who was in tune with God, and what God was asking of him, even when it went against convention and normal ways of acting,” Archbishop Martin said.

The archbishop said we can pray to St Joseph when we are “underwhelmed by the ordinary nature of life” or “struggling to stay faithful to living a life of integrity”.

“And when we come to our own death, or the death of someone we know or love, we pray for his intercession for a grace-filled death,” Archbishop Martin said.

Pope Francis declared 2021 the Year of St Joseph, marking the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX’s proclamation of St Joseph as the patron of the Universal Church.

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Dr Rowan Light (Photo: University of Auckland)

The talk by Dr Rowan Light, an Auckland University historian of memory and commemoration, is titled: “Why memory matters.”

It will take place at 7pm on February 24 at St Leo’s Hall, Devonport. All are welcome and parking is available at the school off Owens Rd, which runs off Lake Rd. There is a gold coin koha.

Dr Light, a former student of St Leo’s School in Devonport, and of Rosmini College in Takapuna, said: “By exploring some of the local stories that have shaped the communities of Devonport, we can see that, just as personal memory is key to the way we construct our identity over our lifetime, so too the collective memory of our communities links us to each other and provides a vision of continuity in the face of radical discontinuity in our everyday lives.”

“My most recent article was published in the special First World War issue of Journal of Australian Studies exploring the scripts of remembrance of 19th and 20^th century violence in Māori Television Anzac Day broadcasts since 2006,” he said.

Dr Light’s doctoral research explored imperial and post-imperial remembrances of the First World War, in particular, the emergence of post-war national commemorations from 1965 to the Anzac Centenary in 2015.

The memory of “the long nineteenth century” is a key research interest.

“My essay ‘Unknown Anzacs: the politics and performance of bodily repatriation and state formation’, was awarded the Ken Inglis Postgraduate History Prize and published in Australian Historical Studies in 2018. ‘Unknown Anzacs’ explored the connections between nineteenth and twentieth-century histories of violence through a comparative and transnational lens,” Dr Light said.

“I have also published in Australian Historical Studies, the Melbourne Journal of History, and the New Zealand Journal of History, as well as reviewing for Men and Masculinities. My ‘public impact’ writing in New Zealand Herald, Dominion Post and The Press has contributed to the evolving debate about public monuments and New Zealand’s colonial history,” he said.

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The conference, which had a theme of “Weaving together Liturgy and Life”, was scheduled to be held at Auckland’s Baradene College on October 1-3, 2020. It has been postponed until October 7-9, 2021. 

In a note on the conference’s website (www.wuss.org.nz), Auckland diocese liturgy centre coordinator Judith Courtney wrote that, in order for the conference to have proceeded as planned this year, Auckland would have to be at alert level 1, at which more than 100 people are allowed at gatherings. 

Since that cannot be guaranteed, the organising committee made the decision not to proceed this year. Since organisers believe such an event will “offer huge benefits”, it was not cancelled, but rather was postponed.  

“More information on this will become available over the following months. Stay in touch,” the website notice stated. 

Those who have paid registration already will receive a full refund, the notice added. 

A series of digital presentations from conference presenters is to be made available, starting on October 2/3 this year. Details on how to access these were listed on the notice. There is no cost for these videos. 

“You might like to gather in small groups to watch the presentations and discuss the content,” the notice suggested. 

“Finally, in this trying time of life in a Covid world, I would like to thank you for staying patient, staying kind, staying connected, staying positive and staying flexible. These are such important gifts,” Ms Courtney added. 

Among those listed as presenters for the now-postponed conference were Australian Jesuit Fr Richard Leonard, Auckland auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen, National Liturgy Office director Fr John O’Connor and Auckland-based theologians Dr Rocio Figueroa and Fr Merv Duffy, SM. 

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