Marist Messenger 1959 — 1964

Fr Kevin McGrath continued as editor ...

1959

6/- for one year
January
“Fourteen students of five races have already enrolled at the new Corpus Christi Teachers’ Training College in Suva which was blessed by the Most Reverend Romolo Carboni, Apostolic Delegate to Australia, New Zealand and Oceania”. The president of the College was Fr Thomas Bambrick SM.

“Parishioners of St Mary’s, Manchester St, Christchurch, now rejoice in the possession of a splendid new church, the fruit of long years of desiring and designing”. Bishop Joyce, “with characteristic kindly sentiment”, invited Archbishop McKeefry, whose parents had spent their years of “holy, happy retirement – at home in one of the most spiritual parishes in the Dominion”, to bless and open the new church.
June
“Sergeant Angelo Roncalli is now Pope John XXIII”. When meeting the captain of the papal gendarmerie, he said, “Captain, you are a bigger noise than I am, because I was only a sergeant”. For a year, the pope had been a sergeant in the Medical Corps of the Italian Army during World War I.

17 Marists from Greenmeadows seminary were ordained to the priesthood.
August
“Bishop Pearce SM brings Carmel to Samoa”:

1960

February
For 30 years the Marist Messenger, “in love for Mary to make her loved”, has entered thousands of homes throughout the Dominion, the Commonwealth of Australia, the USA, the British Isles, Ireland and all the Islands of the Pacific. ... during the whole of that time, the founder and first editor has been at the controls, probably a record reign in the history of Catholic journalism in New Zealand”.

April
“The Centennial of Westland has brought out in bold relief the great work of Catholic educationalists. The work of the Sisters of Mercy, begun some 80 years ago under the inspiration of Fr Patrick McGuiness SM, and that of the Marist Brothers, inaugurated by Dean Denis Carew SM, have been, perhaps, the greatest factors in the formation of the golden heart of the glorious Grey”.

December
“Two of our New Zealand students in Rome recorded recent successes in their examinations ... Fr Arbuckle qualified as a Doctor of Philosophy and Fr Roach won his doctorate in Theology, in defending his thesis on Lainez and the Council of Trent”.

1961

January
“After 15 months of hard work by the Brothers of the Society of Mary, the chapel is nearing completion”. [It was opened on 19 March 1961]

April
“The Rev. Frs B X Doherty, BA, and Bryant, will shortly leave for Samoa to prepare the way for the foundation next year of a Marist College at Moamoa, which is to be controlled and staffed entirely by our NZ Province”.

October
A statue of St Patrick had arrived at Silverstream from France, and was installed “to the strains of the Marseillaise – one of the French games was just starting. It is cast in metal and weighs over a ton”.

1962

March
Fr Anthony Glynn SM was appointed regional superior of the Marist Mission in Japan. His younger brother, Fr Paul Glynn SM was also on the mission staff in Japan.

September
“The greatest treasure of St Patrick’s College, Wellington, is a beautiful painting of Our Lady”. More than 1300 years old, it was said to have been brought to Rome from Constantinople in about 750 AD. It was presented to Bishop Pompallier by Pope Pius IX.

Bishop Lenihan, the fifth Bishop of Auckland, gave the painting to the second rector of St Patrick's, Fr Augustine Keogh SM. The Pompallier Madonna was stolen from St Patrick's College in 1978.

October

Fr McGrath, the editor, was welcomed back to Ōtaki after being ill for some time. Fr Maurice Mulcahy SM was acting-editor for 3 months.

Under the heading, “Recollections of Great Fighting Leader” the acting-editor paid tribute to Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne as he celebrated 50 years as a bishop.

1964

February

‘Auckland’s Grand Old Man’: tribute was paid to Archbishop Liston, who celebrated his 60th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood on 31 January.

March
“It was one of the unusual acts of the All Blacks’ tour when Kevin Barry ... paid a visit to the tomb of Kevin Barry, the Irish patriot, an 18-year-old medical student, whose death by hanging in 1920 stiffened the sinews of the Irish republican movement”.

October
“At a recent meeting of the Provincial Council of the Society of Mary, it was resolved that because of the serious failing  in its editor’s health, he be relieved of the onerous care of the journal he founded and edited so successfully for some 35 years; that, as from December, with a new format more in keeping with its high standard in view, a new editor and staff take over, Fr McGrath to be asked to continue in the honorary position of Editor-in-chief or Emeritus Editor”.

December

‘The Editor’s Last Post’: a lengthy farewell, full of “Our heart’s thanks to all who have shown their great good will and gratitude on the occasion of our retirement”.

As well as being editor of the Marist Messenger since 1929, Fr McGrath had been parish priest in Mt Albert (1930-36), Island Bay (1936-40, and 1942-48), Temuka (1940-42) and Ōtaki (1948-60). He was succeeded as editor by Fr Maurice Mulcahy SM at the beginning of 1965, and died on 6 July that year in Wellington. He was 74 years old.  

Tagged as: Kevin Barry, New Zealand, St Patrick College