PARISH OF MEEANEE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 November 1938, Page 2

PARISH OF MEEANEE

JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS TO BE HELD THIS WEEK (By Telegraph—Press Association.) TARADALE, November 13. One of the oldest in New Zealand, and the cradle of Roman Catholicism in Hawke’s Bay, the parish of Meeanee will celebrate its jubilee during the coming week. The celebrations will begin with a ball in the Taradale Town Hall next Thursday. On Saturday there will be Solemn Requiem Mass in the parish church at nine o’clock for the happy repose of the souls of father Regnier and his brother priests who laboured in the pafish and of all deceased members of the parish. After mass a pilgrimage will be made to the cemetery, where the Rosary will be recited and every grave visited. At midday there will be a reunion dinner in the town hall.

On Sunday Solemn High Mass will be offered in the grounds of St Joseph’s Maori Girls’ College, and at three o’clock in the afternoon there will be the procession of the Most Blessed Sacrament through the college grounds, concluding with Solemn Benediction at an open-air altar. The final gathering will be held on Monday at the school. The parish of Meeanee, which is the centre of a flourishing Maori mission district, was the parent of the European parishes of Napier, Hastings, Waipawa and Wairoa, and was established in 1858. Its beginnings, however, date back as early as 1850, and the first baptism in the register was signed by Fathei’ John Lampila on September 8, 1850. This was performed during Father Lampila’s trek from Gisborne to Pakowhai.

The name of Father Euloge Regnier appears from February 15, 1851. Father Regnier ranks among the noblest of the church’s early missionaries, and most of the parishes in Hawke’s Bay were founded by him. The first stations in Meeanee parish were situated a few miles; away at Pakowhai and were established by Father Lampila in 1851. With him were Brothers Basil and Florentin. Father Regnier was in charge in 1852 until 1888, when intertribal wars compelled the transfer of the centre from Pakowhai to Meeanee.

The original church was enlarged by Father Regnier in 1875; Father Yardin made further extensions, and finally Father Hugh McDonnell raised the whole building above flood level. A large school for Maoris and Europeans was opened in 1873, and until the coming of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1886 the teachers were laymen. Before his death in 1888 Father Regnier, with the assistance of Father Yardin, built a more spacious dwelling for the use of the father of the mission. With additions this building became in 1890 St Mary’s Scholasticate, the first New Zealand training establishment for the priesthood. Its first superior was Father John Francis Pestre.

Following Father Yardin rectors of the parish were Father Binsfield (18941904), Father McDonnell (1904-1911), Dean Grogan (1911-1912), Father W. Tymons (1912-1913), Father W. Groggan (913-1916), Father Hickson (19161922), Father Tubman (1922 until his death a year later), and Father Aubry (1924 urftil his health broke down in 1935). Father Cullen , then cared for the parish for a year, when the Maori mission was restored to Hawke’s Bay in 1936, with Father Fiordan a superior of the mission. ,