New Zealand

Wellington offers extra parish formation programmes

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

Parish formation opportunities are at the fore of the Wellington Catholic archdiocese’s plans for 2024. Its Church Mission team offers a range of learning and development programmes. All focus on parish formation. In providing the programmes, the Archdiocesan Church Mission team responds to findings in the archdiocese’s 2017 synod and the 2021-24 global synod. Both Read more

New St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College about to open

Thursday, December 7th, 2023
St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College

The brand new St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College is about to open. From term one next year, Auckland’s new $80 million St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College will provide an education to hundreds of pupils. In July 2022, the Establishment Board of Trustees of St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College announced that Dean Wearmouth Read more

Call for national unity and to separate politics from treaty debate

Thursday, December 7th, 2023
National Unity

Calling for national unity, Māori King Tuheitia has issued a royal proclamation wanting a national hui to take place. King Tuheitia and the Waitangi National Trust say they want to hold the ‘unifying’ national discussion on the Treaty principles while the new coalition government prepares its own political debate on the issue. The royal proclamation Read more

NZ’s first centre for depression recovery to open in Wellington

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

The country’s first community based Depression Recovery Centre is set to open in Wellington early next year, established by a not-for-profit charity. It will offer a therapeutic day programme for people with moderate to severe mental health issues, and hopes to serve 300 people per year, at purpose built premises in Cuba Street. The centre, Read more

KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals double as New Zealanders struggle

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

New Zealanders are withdrawing money from their KiwiSaver schemes to help them through financial hardship at twice the rate of last year – and one supervisor says it’s largely because of rising interest rates. Data from Inland Revenue shows that there was $21.5 million withdrawn from KiwiSaver accounts for reasons of financial hardship in October, Read more

Parents of pupil with childhood dementia say school super-supportive

Monday, December 4th, 2023
childhood dimentia

A pupil with a disease likened to childhood dementia is much loved at the “fantastic and welcoming” St Mary’s Catholic School in Rotorua , his mum says. The school as a whole is supporting Ollie Schimanski whose rare genetic metabolism disorder (Sanfilippo Syndrome) causes fatal brain damage, Ollie’s mother Charlotte Schimanski explains. There is no Read more

Eight-year Olive Leaf Centre stoush over

Monday, December 4th, 2023
Olive Leaf Centre

Arrowtown’s controversial Olive Leaf design for its Catholic Parish Centre is now no more than an idea that stirred significant interest and controversy. For eight years the Olive Leaf Centre Trust has tried to gain resource consent for the design but to no avail, says Trust chairman Colin Bellett. The plan to build the Centre Read more

Activists call on NZ govt to do more for West Papua

Monday, December 4th, 2023

New Zealand’s government should confront Indonesia over its alleged human rights violations in West Papua, human rights activists and West Papua independence activists in Aotearoa say. The UN Human Rights Council has reported the human rights situation in West Papua has deteriorated, citing reports of torture and mass displacement. “We know the violence that West Read more

Major Gloriavale investigation finds 138 potential abuse victims, dozens of suspected offenders

Monday, December 4th, 2023

A major police investigation into abuse at Gloriavale has identified more than 100 potential victims of crimes spanning about four decades, Stuff can reveal. The previously undisclosed and ongoing investigation, dubbed Operation Mathius, began in 2021, and followed another investigation that brought to light offending involving 60 people at the West Coast fundamentalist Christian community. Read more

Earthquake-prone churches among Masterton’s building worries

Thursday, November 30th, 2023
earthquake-prone churches

Churches in Masterton are included on the newly-updated public register of earthquake-prone buildings. They are among 79 such buildings in the Masterton District. Some of those buildings are in need of urgent work to bring them up to standard by 2026. In all cases, owners must fix their buildings within a given timeframe so they Read more