WelCom April 2022
WelCom’s Hīkoi Whakapono: A Journey of Faith, this month visits Te Pariha o Te Ngākau Tapu – Sacred Heart Parish, in Porirua. Te Ngākau Tapu is the personal parish for Māori in the Archdiocese of Wellington. It is a non-geographical parish and open to all. The parish church is next to Bishop Viard College, 20 Kenepuru Drive, Porirua. Māori Miha (Mass) is celebrated on Sundays at 10am at Te Ngākau Tapu Church. Mass at 5.15pm is in English with some Te Reo. The parish is rich in Māori history, Katorika Māori and Marist Mission. Parish priest, Monsignor Gerard Burns, has written and edited the following articles, with Tū Hono history, originally from Tuhi Mate, provided by Dempsey and Karen Broad.
History of Māori in the Porirua area
There is evidence of human habitation around the Porirua harbour since c.1450 AD. The name Porirua is a corruption of ‘Pari-rua’ meaning ‘the tide sweeping up both arms of the harbour’. A succession of tribes lived around the harbour over the centuries. In the early 1820s Ngāti Toa Rangatira settled there under Te Rauparaha whose domain, by conquest, encompassed both sides of Te Moana o Raukawakawa – Cook Strait. Kāpiti Island was Te Rauparaha’s stronghold enabling access to rich food sources, cross-Strait travel and trade.
Pre-1840, European presence in the area began with whaling stations and flax-traders. In 1840 European settlement under the New Zealand Company began in Wellington harbour. This would lead Te Rauparaha to move to the mainland because of various contacts with settlers and Crown. In autumn 1840 a copy of Te Tiriti was brought to the area. Te Rauparaha signed the Treaty at Kāpiti Island.
However, within a short time, the land hunger of the NZ Company brought trouble. Ngāti Toa saw their mana and rights under the Treaty being infringed. In 1843 the company’s surveying in the Wairau valley, near present-day Blenheim, collided with Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata’s people. In 1846 there was another clash at Boulcott Farm in the Hutt Valley.
Governor Grey tried to end Ngāti Toa resistance. In mid-July 1846 Grey captured an ageing Te Rauparaha from Taupō pā, Plimmerton and detained him without trial in Auckland for 18 months. In August British troops attacked Te Rangihaeata at Battle Hill near Pauatahanui. Te Rangihaeata withdrew north. Following these events Grey pressured Ngāti Toa to sell land to the Crown in Wairau and Porirua, sapping their mana and a form of ransom for Te Rauparaha.
When an ailing Te Rauparaha was released he returned south, living mostly in Ōtaki where he died in 1849. Gradually
Ngāti Toa lost the little land left to it in the Porirua area as settler farms cleared land. A small European settlement grew up at the southern end of the harbour. Part of the land lost by Ngāti Toa became used for the old Porirua psychiatric hospital in 1887, which occupied a site near Bishop Viard College for over 100 years. Later the land returned to Ngāti Toa under their Treaty settlement with the Crown.
The original location of the [present-day Te Ngākau Tapu – Sacred Heart Church] meant it was convenient for Mass for hospital staff. The hospital started downsizing in the 1980s and 1990s as new policies of treatment saw patients released into the community, leaving only some small facilities on the property. Following Ngāti Toa’s Treaty settlement, that land is now being used for a large new housing development taking place there, in part looking to house members of the iwi.
After WWII, large-scale housing development began in Tītahi Bay and Porirua East. The government saw housing growth as a way of providing employment and coincided with the ‘baby boom’. And the policy of import substitution meant the development of new industries. Porirua seemed ideal for both housing and industry as the Crown bought up farmland.
In the early 1960s Porirua township was enlarged by filling in some of the harbour and straightening Kenepuru stream. This went alongside the new urban motorway running north-south through the area. Population growth was rapid through the 1950s and 1960s and many Māori from various iwi settled in the area.
A history of the Catholic Church and Māori in the Porirua area
The first records of Catholic presence in the Porirua area are the visits of Fr Comte coming and going from the Marist Fathers’ and Brothers’ base at Pukekaraka, Ōtaki, where they had started in 1844. In the late 19th-century there is record of a Catholic urupā in the vicinity of Takapūwahia marae.
Takapūwāhia, also known as Porirua Pa, was originally built on one of the oldest settlements in the Porirua basin called Te Urukahika, on the western shore of Porirua harbour.
Once the settler presence – mainly farmers – came to predominate in the Porirua area there was less specifically Catholic contact with Māori. The main symbols of Catholic presence were the churches now known as St Joseph’s in Pauatahanui and Sacred Heart on Kenepuru Drive. From 1850 the area was pastorally served from Lower Hutt and then Johnsonville from 1922. The post WWII population and housing boom brought new parishes and churches. However, although the first priests and brothers arriving in Aotearoa in 1838 came to work primarily with Māori, for various reasons by 1880 work with Māori had became marginalised in the Church’s pastoral work.
Some of those reasons were: the expansion of the settler population and the demand from already-baptised settlers for sacramental services; the challenge of financing a mission among an impoverished people; the impact of the land wars on Māori and related withdrawal of Church personnel, cultural differences; settler racism.
In the archdiocese the ‘Māori Mission’ was carried on in various places by a cadre of Marist priests and Compassion Sisters and the Mission Sisters at Hato Hōhepa, Hawke’s Bay.
Māori Mission functioned in parallel to mainstream parishes. Until WWII it operated mainly in rural areas where most Māori resided but as Māori moved to the cities the Mission adapted. Te Kainga, a place in Wellington city for former pupils of Hato Pāora and Hato Hōhepa colleges opened in the 1960s initially in Hill St, Thorndon. In 1978 the Marist Fathers and Brothers opened a base in Castor Crescent, Porirua East. This house was named Tū Hono by kuia Bessie Thomson.
The Compassion sisters, from their founding on the Whanganui River, had contact with Māori in various places including Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa. They also assisted in many practical ways the Mission in Porirua, with Srs Walburga and Mina Fetu’u being among their representatives.
The priests and brothers worked from Castor Crescent, Porirua until 1995. They visited Māori families, encouraged Tū Hono cultural club and the annual Easter Hui Aranga as well as faith and ministry development through the Ahi Kā and Waka Aroha programmes. They also visited centres for Miha Māori in the Hutt Valley, Kāpiti Coast, Wairarapa and to the top of the South Island as well as the regular Masses at Sacred Heart-Te Ngākau Tapu.
There were several Marists who spent time at Castor Crescent – Br Denis O’Brien and priests Pat Cleary, Hemi Hekiera, Paddy Kinsella, Trevor Tindall, Chris Martin, Phil King-Turner, Don Hamilton among them.
The beginnings of Te Roopū o Tūhono
In 1982 a strong Māori Catholic community were already meeting for Miha Māori at different locations in Porirua including Sr Walburga’s Day Care Centre in Cannons Creek, private homes, Sacred Heart Church in Kenepuru Rd, and many more. This community prepared
to support the annual Catholic Hui Aranga to be held the following Easter at Porirua College.
In 1983, after the successful Hui Aranga, a small group decided to formally organise a cultural club based in Porirua to meet the needs of Māori and the wider community. Following lots of kōrero and hui, the first president elected was Mr Harris. A short time later he had to move away and Kahu Ratana was elected president. Those first involved in the group were: Tuhi and Nina Mate, Aggie Tautuhi, Bernie Crawford, Mere Noema, Timikara (Russel) Watson, Evelyn Broad, Gary (Snr) and Ellen Davis, Maurice and Mihi Larkin, Hine Campbell, Haami Whanau, Mānuka Henare (Māori Mission) Jenny Peita, Liz Thomas, Herena Ormsby,
Sr Walburga, Sr Dorothea, Pā Cleary, Br Denis O’Brien, Pā Hemi Hekiera, Pā Paddy Kinsella, Pā Trevor Tindall, Pā Chris Martin.
Bessie Thomson gifted the name Tū Hono (uniting the people) for the Marist Māori Mission house in Castor Crescent, Porirua East. Because of the close connection between the Māori Catholic community and the Marist Mission, karakia, waiata, and whānaungatanga were often shared at the priests’ place. The Kaumatua felt it fitting to name Tū Hono Culture Club after Tū Hono Whare.
In 1984 Tuhi Mate was elected chairperson of the club. The club was practicing at a number of different venues – the Polynesian Centre, Cannons Creek; Holy Family school, Tairangi school; Bishop Viard College basement, various garages, whare and lawns of club whānau including Tū Hono where the priests resided. This drew a lot of attention, and the Roopū began to grow. From 1986 fundraising began for clubrooms.
In 1987 Sacred Heart Church was relocated adjacent to Bishop Viard College site. In October 1990 Te Whare o Tū Hono clubrooms were also opened on that site by Cardinal Tom Williams.
Te Roopū o Tū Hono consisted of a large group of practicing Catholic and non-Catholic Māori, and non-Māori. There were midgets, juniors and seniors with lots of whānau support. Whānau involved in Hato Pāora Māori Boys and St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ colleges brought with them a large network.
Tuhi and Nina Mate and all involved, wisely provided a safe and nurturing place for the less fortunate to come and replenish their wairua, tinana and hinengaro. Tū Hono Whare was another means for providing a space for them to feel welcomed. The Roopū would also host various functions for other groups especially Kaumatua.
On 23rd May 1999, Sacred Heart church was renamed and became Te Ngākau Tapu. The parish was formally established under that name in July 1999. The parish of Te Ngākau Tapu turned 21 in July 2020. A celebration Mass was held with the visit of Cardinal John Dew in the presence of the members of the parish community and visitors. The people rejoiced in the occasion, remembered those gone before them, and entered deeply into the karakia of the Mass and traditional waiata. Cardinal John spoke words of encouragement as everyone gathered in the aftermath of the time of the first Covid-19 lockdown. Despite that time of adversity, the Mass, a hākari and a special 21st cake were organised.
Te Ngākau Tapu church and parish
Te Ngākau Tapu church in Porirua was built in the early 1900s as the church of the Holy Name for the Catholic population of the Porirua area and Tawa Flat. It was later renamed Sacred Heart Church and then the Māori translation, Te Ngākau Tapu.
The Porirua area came under Lower Hutt Catholic parish from 1850 and the original congregation of the church would have been mostly of European descent. From 1922 the area transferred to Johnsonville parish. The church’s original site was on the main road out from Wellington to Porirua – before the current motorway existed – now known as Kenepuru Drive. Not far away was the old Porirua psychiatric hospital.
When new parishes were being formed after WWII, the church came under Porirua East parish. Later it was part of the small Porirua-Elsdon parish partly formed for chaplaincy to Porirua psychiatric hospital. In 1978 the Marist Fathers and Brothers founded a base in Castor Crescent, Porirua East to serve local Māori. A community of Catholic Māori gathered for Miha Māori and then for cultural activities – described in the above story Te Roopū o Tū Hono.
In 1987, the church’s site was bought by the neighbouring petrol station. The church was shifted across the road and onto the hillside adjacent to Bishop Viard College. The archdiocese had acquired the college land in the early 1960s. Later a piece was carved out for the church and then Tū Hono hall which opened in 1990.
In 1999, following the 1995 move of the Marist Fathers and Brothers to Petone, Cardinal Tom Williams started something new. In place of the former Porirua-Elsdon parish he named Te Ngākau Tapu church (TNT) as base of a personal parish for Māori.
Cardinal Tom saw this as giving Māori equal pastoral status to other parishes. The then recently ordained Pā Colin Durning became the founding parish priest and his support for the parish continued long after his ‘retirement’. Around 2006–2008, when there was not a priest available, Plimmerton parish assumed responsibility for TNT until Pā Gerard Burns became parish priest in 2008.
A personal parish is ‘different’ as it is not geographically limited as most parishes are. It caters for particular groupings or needs, such as university students, language groups or rites. Parishioners can come from a wider area than ordinary parish boundaries. Catholic Māori from anywhere in the archdiocese can belong to TNT although, in practice, most regular attendees of the parish live in the northern suburbs.
A particular strength for TNT is the chance for Māori to shape the liturgy weekly with use of te reo, chant, mihimihi, karanga and taonga pūoro. The people of the parish have collaborated with other parishes working on these aspects of their parish life and liturgy. Kuia and kaumatua provide depth of faith and a korowai of aroha for all.
Most of the founding members of the parish were also members of the Tū Hono cultural club – currently in recess – and the parish has always included people who do not identify as Māori but are friends and supporters of the work of the parish. This includes attendees at the Sunday morning Miha in te reo and the people attending the 5.15pm evening Mass.
The first parish priest for the newly established Te Ngākau Tapu parish in 1999 – at the request of the Māori community – was the recently ordained Fr Colin Durning. Then aged 70, he had formerly been a professor of dentistry, then resident dentist at the Porirua psychiatric hospital and was very familiar with the church and the community. Pā Colin passed away in Christchurch in February this year, aged 95. Last November he celebrated 25 years as a priest. An obituary for Pā Colin will be published in WelCom soon.
Photos: Supplied