Category: Bishops

The new Catholic Bishop of Christchurch admits he faces “quite a challenge for a young man”. Bishop Michael Gielen, DD, realises he is “inheriting responsibilities”

A 14-year-old boy heard the Bishop of Christchurch announce the New Zealand bishops’ decision to open a “minor seminary” in Christchurch. The seminary would function

John Basil Meeking was born in Ashburton on the 19th of November 1929. He attended St Joseph’s Catholic School in Ashburton, and his family moved

The bodies of two bishops lie side by side in Christchurch’s Bromley Cemetery. To read their headstones is to confront a riddle. At left is

An East London slum dweller, son of illiterate parents, became the first Catholic Bishop of Christchurch. Records of John Joseph Grimes’s childhood were so scanty

A tide of change was about to engulf the Church when Fr Brian Ashby became the fifth Bishop of Christchurch. Bishop Ashby was consecrated in

Living next to the Marist priests’ house in Hastings, not far from the Marist seminary at Greenmeadows, the young Paul Martin felt “swamped” by Marist

Piety, humility and generosity marked Bishop Matthew Brodie’s episcopacy. Truly a “good shepherd”, he had to adopt the role of wise statesman too. For Bishop

  Neighbourhood kids marked lines in chalk on a Rangiora back street for their rugby games. From this humble melee of rucks and scrums emerged

He might have been labelled Edward the Unwilling, for Fr Edward Joyce was aghast when notified of his appointment as the fourth Bishop of Christchurch. The