Built in a style reminiscent of an open-sided whare (house), the new entrance structure helps welcome people into Garin College's wairua (soul).

It also protects the school's "story and curriculum", principal John Maguire says.

Bicultural story

That story began with the powhiri when the school opened in 2002.

The powhiri was held in exactly the same place where the new entranceway has been sited.

Today, the newly-opened entranceway serves a number of purposes, Maguire says.

It's a shelter for students who like gathering there each morning.

But it also represents "an exciting step" in the school's bi-cultural journey. Garin College's communities are two-fold: educational and Catholic, Maguire explains.

Whakairo - Carving

The whakaaro (concepts) represented on the building's facade are the fruit of bi-cultural research and consultation.

The school's Maori protocols leader, Matua Simon Pimm, undertook some of this while the school consulted with the Catholic parish community on the design.

The result "spoke to" the Maori who first arrived in Aotearoa and to local Maori's whakapapa and journey, Maguire says.

The symbolism continues within the structure, where four pou represent the Maori health model's four cornerstones, Te Whare Tapa Wha'.

In the centre, imagery of "an Atua or God, Christ at the centre, and the Trinity - or the mystery if you like - for both Maori and Christian, in terms of the mystery of faith" Maguire says.

Inside the structure there are four panels, each named after the school's house patrons.

That was a move to help students "reflect on the influence of those inspirational persons ... in Catholic education," Maguire says.

Garin College's founding patron Father Antoine Garin, and Bishop Pompallier, the first Catholic missionary to arrive in New Zealand, are named on the panels.

The church Garin established in Nelson some 150 years ago, St Mary's parish church, also features as a cut-out in the whare, Maguire says.

Other symbolism is encapsulated in the five boulders around the whare.

These represent the school's five current values. Maguire says these are generosity, aroha (love), rangimarie (peace), integrity and new life.

They were designed to show the values are "rock solid", Maguire says.

Funding

Funding for the new entranceway came from the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington.

The Archdiocese in turn received the funds by way of a property-upgrade package provided to state-ontegrated schools four years ago by the government.

Plans

Between now and 2025, Garin College's building plans include four new classrooms and a multi-purpose area.

The $5.6m project is needed since the College is already nearing its capacity (670 students).

Next year's roll of 635 is far larger than the roll of about 500 five years ago.

Source

• Stuff

The comments about parish sacramental celebrations come from Palmerston North's Bishop emeritus, Peter Cullinane, in an article published in Tui Motu.

Citing examples of the Church's mistakes, Cullinane says the lack of training for diocesan priests in ministry to Maori combined with the Church entrusting the ‘Maori Mission' to specialist groups ensures that most Maori do not feel 'at home' in our parish church celebrations of Eucharist.

He says that developing a sense of inclusiveness does not come about by running parallel Maori and European churches.

"The Church in our country is greatly indebted to the Religious Orders to whom the ‘Maori Mission' was entrusted," he writes.

Cullinane mentions the Society of Mary, the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion, the Mill Hill Missionaries and the Congregation of Our Lady of the Missions in particular.

"Their work continues to bear fruit, and any alterations to pastoral practices need to safeguard the right of Maori to continue to experience life and worship in the Church in ways that are natural to them."

Nevertheless, Cullinane says, running a Maori Mission parallel to parishes had serious unintended side effects.

He writes it is against that background that introducing te reo into parish Eucharists seems a tiny gesture - but it is about recognition of tangata whenua, inclusion and belonging.

"Of course, it would be mere tokenism if it were not to follow through in all the ways required by respect for the rights of Maori in wider society and Te Tiriti o Waitangi."

Our celebrations of the Eucharist are meant to feed into our daily lives, Cullinane points out.

"Eucharistic life involves the rejection of racial prejudice and discrimination wherever these occur.

"In this way, the use of te reo in parish Eucharists should whet our appetites for the kind of hospitality, listening, sense of community and inclusiveness we have been talking about on the synodal journey."

He suggests that the next step is to experience Eucharist on a marae and recognise Maori's warm and welcoming ways.

"This way, people can see how these properly belong to the gathering stage of coming together for Eucharist.

"Respect for the rights of the home people can be only a first step in our reaching out to the many others in our society who suffer from inequalities …

"It also involves our support for other ethnic groups who can be victims of racial prejudice. Anything less than a prophetic stand for all these is less than Eucharistic."

Failure to address prejudice or help people disadvantaged by personal, social or economic conditions, proves the Second Vatican Council's claim:

"The split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age," writes Cullinane.

Source

• Tui Motu

Ordinary Catholics are comfortable today doing and saying things that would have been unthinkable to them just a few short years ago.

And this is a good thing.

More than changes to Church governance, the policies and procedures, changes in what ordinary Catholics expect of themselves have the potential to improve the health of the Church.

We have the potential to help the victims find healing and justice.

And our new sense of what is acceptable behavior has the potential to pressure the clergy themselves into better behavior.

The ongoing drama in the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, illustrates these points.

Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone has come under fire for covering up clergy sexual abuse.

The diocese released a list of 42 credibly accused priests. However, the local TV station found more than 100 names.

The FBI is investigating the diocese.

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed two retired judges who are overseeing a diocesan program to compensate abuse victims. The usual mess.

In a slightly new and different twist, the diocese recently placed several priests on administrative leave for issues not directly related to sexual abuse of minors.

A local news source reports:

"According to the diocese, ‘unsuitable, inappropriate and insensitive conversations' took place during a social gathering of seminarians and priests on April 11 that some seminarians found to be offensive."

Five priests and 14 seminarians were present at this pizza party at a local rectory.

Three priests were placed on administrative leave. The other two priests were reprimanded for not doing enough to stop the inappropriate conversation.

Of the 14 seminarians present, five have been interviewed as of this writing.

They tell a mutually consistent story of (very) crude conversation that most Catholics would regard as (really) inappropriate for clergy.

To say that the diocese has "trust issues" would be an understatement.

Many local Catholics don't trust anything that comes out of the chancery or Christ the King Seminary.

This cloud of suspicion is a basic fact of our current Catholic culture, and it affects how people respond.

When the pizza-party story broke, I saw people defending one of the priests on Facebook.

They were sure Bishop Malone was trying to get rid of this priest, whom they regarded as good and orthodox.

Eventually, more evidence came out confirming the seminarians' story that the priest in fact made the inappropriate comments.

But the original reaction shows how little trust people have in the Catholic establishment in Buffalo.

I also saw people connecting the dots between priests' sexually explicit talk in the presence of seminarians, a priest having a "romantic interest" in a seminarian and clergy sexual abuse of minors.

In the public mind, tolerance of one issue leads to tolerance of the other issues and to an environment of clergy covering for each other.

Do we, as members of the general public, have all the facts?

No, of course not.

In the nature of things, we cannot have all the facts about a private gathering.

This is obviously not the healthiest environment for getting to the truth of important matters.

But the diocese has only itself to blame.

Its pattern of nontransparency induces people to project the worst possible interpretation onto uncertain situations.

This a noteworthy change in Catholic culture.

Once upon a time in post-World War II America, Catholics revered their priests. Bing Crosby's Father Charles O'Malley would never harm anyone or tell a lie. Catholics and non-Catholics alike trusted Bishop Fulton Sheen.

Even in the post-Vatican II theological free-for-all, dissenting and faithful Catholics alike would have been uneasy with the assumption that a bishop was lying to them.

Those days are long gone.

Questioning clergy and their motives is no longer a marker for disrespect, dissent or anti-Catholicism.

We are light-years away even from the scandals of 2002.

Back then, some of the best investigative reporting was done by news outlets that also pushed for heterodox changes in Church teaching.

Back then, people who loved the Church's magisterium tried to minimize the scandals.

But now, in the post-McCarrick era, Catholic laity across the theological board believe it is socially acceptable, and even praiseworthy, to blow the whistle.

Bishop Malone's personal secretary, Siobhan O'Connor, was fond of him. Yet she was the person who released incriminating documents.

Why?

She listened to the victims.

She was never the same afterward. Continue reading

• Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., the founder and president of the Ruth Institute

On his Twitter account he describes himself as "Priest for the theologian. canucks fan. vintage jazz enthusiast. beer snob. reader of books.

He is pretty impressed with his godson's two-year-old liturgical knowledge. Have a look and see why

I left their works out, because most people have already read them. Continue reading

This week, for instance, the Christmas tree to be displayed in St. Peter's Square arrived at the Vatican.

It's an 82-foot-tall fir tree, cut down on Nov. 13 in a forest outside the small town of Scurelle (13,000 souls) in the northern Italian province of Trento. The Italian army moved it in a helicopter to a staging location, where it was put on a truck for the ride to Rome.

It's already been put up in the square, which is the traditional annual signal that the holidays are upon us.

Also this week, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo launched its 41st annual exhibit of 11 nativity scenes from around the world, while Vatican personnel are working feverishly to prepare the massive nativity scene that each year dominates St. Peter's Square.

During a presentation of the exhibit last Thursday, local schoolchildren performed a "living" nativity scene, while Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, now the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, was on hand.

(In a touching footnote, the theme of the living scene was "In Amatrice, the bell tower strikes the Holy Night," a tribute to a small Italian town famed for its pasta sauce that was wiped out by an August 24 earthquake.)

The Roman Academy of Arts also held an event for children aged 4 to 11 on "the nativity scene as play," teaching kids how to make their own.

All this offers a reminder of just how central the iconography of Christmas, especially the nativity scene, is to Catholic culture. Herewith, then, three things one can glean about Catholicism from observing the special place that the nativity scene occupies in the Vatican, and in Catholic hearts. Continue reading

• John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux, specialising in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.