1850: St Mary’s, Auckland
August 14, 2019
By AHNZ
One thing I know about Catholics, they’re fanatical about Christ’s mother: Mary. Personally, it just seems to me that Jesus put in most of the grunt work. All the more so if he really did conclude his earthly mission by flying over the Atlantic (shunning the Africans) to convert the ancient Americans (as the Mormons teach us.) For Catholics like Bishop Pompallier the more important figure is the woman who God mated with so…Mary, Mary, Mary. That’s how St Mary’s Bay, Auckland, came to be named by Pompallier.
Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier
Frenchman, J.B. Pompallier was the founder Catholic Church in New Zealand and its first Bishop here. He first set up shop at Kororareka/Russell but when that settlement fell to the Maoris and was sacked he choose to regroup after a trip back to France.
By 19 August 1850, Pompallier was back in New Zealand to receive a grant of land for his church. The generous owner was Sir George Grey in the capacity of being Governor of New Zealand. Grey had purchased the land from the appropriate tribes. It would not be unusual for such a purchase to come with a promise of hospitals and schooling provisions. Grey’s gift to the Catholics was “for the purpose of Maori education and [aiding] the poor.”¹
Here, Pompallier built St Mary’s College (aka Seminary) to churn out some home-brewed Catholic Priests for New Zealand. On the same block of land other Catholic institutions were set up including St Peter’s Catechist School and St Peter’s Maori College which later translated its name to Hato Petera.
By 1853, the Catholics decided to centre around the south shore of Auckland harbour and purchased land near today’s Three Lamps in Ponsonby. Once again, they honoured their favourite Lady by calling it Mount Saint Mary. The following year, they transferred St Mary’s College here and it is for that reason we have Pompallier Terrace and St Mary’s Bay, Auckland.
Bishop Pompallier himself had something of a strange ending. Old (c.70yo) and sick, he braved the sea one last time to return to his native land of France in 1868. It seems to me for all the world that he had gone to the soil of his homeland to die and find his final rest. Yet, bizarrely to me at least, New Zealanders in 2002 disturbed his corpse and hauled it up the length of the country! Catholics love their pageantry, I guess…
Hato Petera College
St Peter’s Maori College pulled the pin on its school a year ago this month (31 August 2018.) The school is there to be used now, really. It was still being provided, still open to enrolments, but there were no takers. The Maoris don’t seem to want to be Catholics anymore. And, they don’t want St Peter’s for their children either.
Just as the school officially closed, the grounds were invaded and occupied by Maori activists. The trespassers moved onto the private property that belongs to the church and demanded the land be given to them as rightful owners…
“Protesters living at an old Māori Catholic boarding school have been ordered by the High Court to leave the school grounds”.- Māori land occupiers forced to leave beleaguered Auckland school; Stuff
It’s interesting that this group, ‘Kotahitanga Movement Aotearoa’, employed the same methodology as the Ihumatao trespassers who call themselves ‘Soul’. Exactly 1 year before the 2019 occupation in South Auckland the 2018 occupation was occurring on the North Shore. In the earlier case the trespass order was served and the activists removed.
Lost the Moral High Ground
One reason Slave Culture activists lost the initiative in 2018 is that they’re certainly in the wrong. Let’s assume Governor Grey did promise to bring schools to the chiefs from whom he purchased the land. Has he not kept his word? The deal for educational provision is satisfied by the 1877 Education Act for “compulsory and free and secular education.”
Likewise, if Grey’s promise was outsourced to Bishop Pompallier and his people have they too not kept their word? They provided this particular school for 90 years and only stopped because of lack of demand.
“A High Court judgement released on Wednesday said the protesters had damaged the building during their occupation including breaking windows, cutting phone lines, and forcing entry into locked buildings.” – Māori land occupiers forced to leave beleaguered Auckland school; Stuff
These squatting vandals have been finally evicted and are probably swelling the ranks at Ihumatao right at this moment. Apart from vandalism and trespassing, their leader Reti Boynton (image above) is facing charges of assaulting the 2014 New Zealander of the year…
Reti Boynton, from Kaitaia, pleaded not guilty at Auckland’s North Shore District Court to one charge of assault, said to have taken place place on Hato Pētera College grounds, on April 26.
Boynton will next appear in court on the alleged assault matter on August 12.- Man charged with assaulting Dr Lance O’Sullivan appears in court; Stuff
Dr. O’Sullivan was affiliated with Hato Petera College, being of of its old boarding students. I can find no news of how things turned out in this criminal case. There are Youtube clips of Boynton while he was still holding his ground and he presented to me as an intelligent and charismatic guy. His equivalent at Ihumatao, Pania Newton, has the advantage of not being charged with assault and not having any infrastructure she can be convicted of vandalising.
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1 Our School; Hato Petera College; Wayback Machine
Image ref. ibid
Image ref. Pompallier; Pompallier Hokianga Trust
Image ref. Google Street View
Image ref. World’s only co-educational Māori high school closes; Newstalk ZB
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