New NZ priest celebrates Latin Mass in west Auckland church

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014

A priest in Auckland diocese has celebrated his first extraordinary form Mass in Latin within days of his ordination.

Fr Jeremy Palman was ordained by Bishop Patrick Dunn at St Patricks’ Cathedral on August 9, and the new priest offered a thanksgiving Mass in the ordinary form at Te Atatu the next day.

On August 12, two days later, Fr Palman celebrated his “first traditional Latin Mass” at Holy Family Parish, Te Atatu.

This is believed to have been a “High Mass” of the extraordinary form (EF).

Some 500 people were present, said Fr Peter Janssen, SM, who was a “priest in choir” at the liturgy.

“It was beautifully sung. The music was just right, the music serving the liturgy,” he said.

Young New Zealand priests had significant parts, with Fr Gerard Boyce of Hamilton being sub-deacon and Fr Nicholas Dillon (on loan from Dunedin diocese and ministering in Melbourne) being the deacon and homilist.

Some New Zealand seminarians were acolyte, torchbearer and thurifer at the liturgy.

Fr Janssen, who lectures seminarians and others at Good Shepherd College in Auckland, said there is interest among his students in the extraordinary form liturgy.

Fr Janssen celebrated an EF Mass at Good Shepherd, as part of a liturgy class, a couple of years ago.

This followed an EF Mass celebrated at the theologate by Fr John Rizzo, FSSP, in 2009.

Under Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, priests can celebrate extraordinary form Masses without a congregation, according to the 1962 Missal, without permission from their bishop or Rome, except during the Easter Triduum.

Such Masses may “be attended also by members of the lay faithful who spontaneously request to do so, with respect for the requirements of law”.

Fr Janssen said the community of people in Auckland with devotion to the extraordinary form Mass is not large in percentage terms.

“But in terms of the intensity with which it is experienced and felt, it is significant,” he said.

These people wish to be in “unambiguous communion” with the Church, he said.

Fr Janssen celebrates EF Masses at Mt St Mary’s in Titirangi on Saturday nights, Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. Some other priests help him when he can’t be there.

Fr Palman will be assistant priest at Papakura in south Auckland.

According to the seminary website, he is an Aucklander who was born in Twizel and spent some time in religious life in the 1990s.

Auckland diocese did not want to comment for this article.

Sources