WelCom February/March 2025
This edition of WelCom – the 430th issue since the newspaper began 40 years ago – is significant, being the last issue as the publication comes to a close. We have invited two former proprietors, Cardinal John Dew and Bishop Peter Cullinane, and some of our longstanding and regular contributors to share their reflections on WelCom for this final edition.
A look back at WelCom
Annette Scullion, Editor, WelCom, 2014–2025
The first edition of WelCom was published in September 1984 – the WelCom name being an abbreviation of ‘Wellington Communications’. In 1984, Cardinal Tom Williams was the archbishop. His vision to establish this Catholic newspaper to inform, teach, and tell the stories of the archdiocese. WelCom has also been for many years shared with the Diocese of Palmerston North.
In his greeting on the front cover of the inaugural edition, Cardinal Tom wrote:
Derived from the words: ‘Wellington Communications’, WEL-COM is indeed welcomed into the life of our Archdiocese.
Our Catholic people and organisations have good news to share. Because of the growth and developments taking place, it is news to cheer and hearten. Without some form of Archdiocesan newspaper, that good news will remain largely untold.
WEL-COM is to be distributed at every Mass in the Archdiocese. This first issue should therefore reach every active parish family and individual. It is hoped to produce two further issues before the end of this year.
So read, and share the joy of your Archbishop, your clergy and your fellow Catholics.
Cardinal Tom’s aim was to share news of the archdiocese. Firstly it was about two specific and related projects – progress reports on the Cathedral strengthening, the additions to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the Cathedral Foyer and Connolly Hall; and secondly it was to make public information about archdiocesan finances. The second edition of WelCom included a four-page, lift out with the financial review for 1984 and a budget for 1985.
Over its 40-year lifespan WelCom has changed. It has been a means to share papal letters and encyclicals and encourage others to read, reflect and pray with messages from the Holy Father – particularly Pope Francis in the last 12 years. It has grown as a vehicle for sharing news, issues, opinions and stories about the Archdiocese of Wellington and the Diocese of Palmerston North and beyond, to learn from and support one another and to inform, inspire and educate our Catholic and wider communities.
Creating 430 hundred editions of WelCom over 40 years has been an immense achievement for all involved: from the editors – Fr Bernie Hehir, Marilyn Pryor, Cecily McNeil and [me] Annette Scullion – to regular and casual contributors, the advertisers and other supporters who have helped to keep it going as a free newspaper, and to those in the parishes and schools who help distribute WelCom to whānau and families, to share information about the Wellington and Palmerston dioceses, and the wider Church and community.
The media landscape has also changed enormously over the last 40 years. WelCom began before electronic media became mainstream and news and information was communicated largely through printed press, radio and television. With so many communication formats being instant and fragmented, the place of a regular, printed Catholic community newspaper that has brought targeted and connected information through our parishes and schools has been important and cherished.
Now, sadly, WelCom | NauMai has reached the end of an era as a printed and online newspaper for our two dioceses. It is time to say ‘haere rā’ and hand over the communication reins to a new information platform and direction.
Source: Excerpts from WelCom’s 400th commemorative edition, February 2022.
Pope Francis: communication must be inclusive and truthful
‘The duty of those who work in communications is to encourage closeness, to give voice to the excluded, to draw attention to what we normally discard and ignore,’ Pope Francis said when addressing Vatican employees and participants in the Dicastery for Communication’s Plenary Assembly at an audience in November 2022.
‘True communication stems from listening, from encounter, from telling the stories of people.’ Too often, the media marginalises and censors ‘what is uncomfortable and what we do not want to see’.
He went on to say, ‘communication must also make the diversity of views possible, while always seeking to preserve unity and truth, fighting slander, verbal violence, personalisms and fundamentalism that […] only spread division and discord’.
Pope Francis encouraged his audience to continue to be ‘reliable and bold, to speak from the heart and to listen carefully, to be humane and to always engage in dialogue in the quest for truth’.
Source: Vatican News
An instrument of HOPE
Cardinal John Dew
Year of 2025 Pope Francis has reminded us of and asked us to not only have hope but to give hope to others.
In this issue of WelCom, it is time to give thanks for all that this Catholic newspaper has been to the Archdiocese of Wellington and the Diocese of Palmerston North since September 1984. Sadly, but realistically, this edition Number 430, is the last edition of WelCom.
WelCom has served thousands of people over the two dioceses for forty years. I am most grateful for all that it has been for us. The paper has educated us and informed us of what is happening in the local churches as well as about our church nationally and internationally.
I know too that Cardinal Tom Williams was proud and grateful for WelCom, for its editors and contributors over all those years. It has been a resource which has been informative and educational. I also believe it has been an instrument of HOPE.
As we reminisce and give thanks for what has been a remarkable achievement, we could do not better than to think of the ways this resource has given us HOPE. The Jubilee year of 2025 was still a long way off when WelCom began in the 1980s, the phrase ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ had not been used at that stage, and Pope Francis was a Jesuit priest in Argentina.
As we reflect on this gift, we have enjoyed for forty years we give thanks for the way it has given us Hope and we pray that each of us will take up the call with enthusiasm and truly become ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.
WelCom – a true apostolate
Emeritus Bishop Peter Cullinane
Through stories and histories, pictures and faces, WelCom has portrayed Catholic faith as it has been lived in so many different settings. It set out, and was laid out, to engage eyes, ears, minds and hearts – not minds only; not information only. These multi-faceted presentations have helped to expand people’s awareness of what they belong to. It has helped them to know what is theirs through their own participation.
The communities of the two dioceses – Wellington and Palmerston North – are indebted to WelCom’s editors down its forty-plus years. I have some idea of the extra sacrifices they have made.
Research by the NZ Catholic Education Office under Brother Sir Patrick Lynch revealed that for most Catholics, their main source of information about the Church came not from parish newsletters or diocesan offices or New Zealand Catholic Communications, or radio, but from the Catholic schools. And so, a big ‘thank you’ is due to those in the schools and parishes who sent WelCom out into homes.
That was WelCom’s original purpose – a true apostolate. WelCom went looking for its readers. Online communications will be there for those who go looking for it – pastorally speaking, a different model.
As we move into the changing environment of communications, let us ask God’s blessing on what the Second Vatican Council called an apostolate and a pastoral responsibility.
Final thoughts from a contributor
Dr Elizabeth Julian rsm
I read this description recently:
There is an old saying: ‘A friend knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes.’ In our circle of friends, we need the prophet who asks, ‘What voices are really guiding you?’ We need the cheerleader who encourages us, as well as the harasser who teases us when we take ourselves, rather than God, too seriously. Finally, we need an inspirational voice that calls us to be all we can be without embarrassing us about where we are now.
WelCom over the years has been that friend to many throughout the two dioceses and further afield. A monthly platform for the prophet, the cheerleader, the harasser and the inspirer, it has called and challenged us to live out our baptismal vocation to be priest, prophet and king in our daily lives.
Thank you Bernie (RIP), Marilyn (RIP), Cecily and Annette for your skill, patience, creativity and determination to meet the deadlines despite numerous challenges as you kept us informed, and for encouraging 107 articles from me over the past 25 years. Thank you, too, Tom (RIP), John and Peter for your broad vision and relentless pastoral concern to keep the people informed and formed.
‘Thank you, WelCom’ – from the Nathaniel Centre for Bioethics
Dr John Kleinsman
The Nathaniel Centre for Bioethics has had a long and productive relationship with WelCom for which we are very thankful. We were formed as an agency for the New Zealand Catholic Bishops in 1999, a response to the rise of novel and increasingly complex ethical and moral issues associated with new developments in biotechnology.
One of the first active contributions our Centre made to discussions in the ‘public square’ was an extensive submission to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in 2000. That work was recognised in numerous ways, notably in the Commission’s final report, which made frequent reference to the Nathaniel Centre and NZ Catholic Bishops Conference contribution. In February this year, almost 25 years on, we have made a new submission on the same topic as the current government seeks to update the legislation that shapes our regulatory processes around Genetic Engineering.
The past 25 years have seen significant biotech developments. In keeping with our responsibility to educate the Catholic laity and promote the study and practical resolution of ethical, social and legal issues arising out of biotechnologies, we have found the WelCom newspaper to be an effective means for keeping people informed.
A synthesis of the WelCom reporting on bioethical issues over the years provides a comprehensive history of the changes that have happened in New Zealand. It is with sadness we hear this is the final issue.
At a time when there is an ever-greater need for the Church to reinforce an approach to human dignity that highlights a commitment to the weak and those less endowed with power (see Dignitas Infinita), we need every means possible to communicate such a narrative. From this perspective, the loss of any Catholic publication is regrettable.
That said, the dominant emotion for this time is one of gratitude for the willingness of the present and past editors to report on the serious topics we deal with, and which have ramifications for all New Zealanders.
Grātiam habeō
Dr John Kleinsman
Kaitohu | Director
The Nathaniel Centre for Bioethics
TE KUPENGA – Catholic Leadership Institute
‘My word is my mana’
‘Ko taku kupu, ko taku mana’
Deacon Danny Karatea Goddard, Wellington
Rīkona Danny Karatea-Goddard, Te Ūpoko o te Ika
Since 2002 l have been associated with WelCom and the current editor Annette Scullion [since 2014]. It is moments like these we remember Bernie Hehir, Marilyn Pryor, Cecily McNeil and now Annette Scullion who have made wonderful contributions as editors in the past. WelCom reports about Church, inter-Church, Catholic education, schools, parish, community and social justice news, issues, and events in Wellington and Palmerston North Catholic dioceses.
The WelCom magazine has always been a highlight for our Māori Eucharistic communities as it kept us connected and updated on the good works in the Diocese of Palmerston North and Archdiocese of Wellington.
For many years now l have supported WelCom with regular translations and reflections. Our communities will always treasure He Hīkoi Whakapono, the collection of stories of our communities across both dioceses. It gave a glimpse into you and me, our aunties and uncles, our mokopuna and the simple everyday life of the Church.
Our Māori prophet and king Tawhiao had a beautiful saying, ‘Ko taku kupu, ko taku mana’ – ‘My mana is my word’. Your good work has brought mana to our words.
TODAY we give thanks to God for Annette Scullion and her sterling work over the years. Annette your words, your heartfelt expression and works of love will remain in black and white – and colour – for years to come. Thank you and God bless you.
Nō te tau 2002 kua hono ahau ki a NauMai me tōna ētita o nāianei, ki a Annette Scullion. He hokinga mahara atu tēnei ki a Bernie Hehir rātou ko Marilyn Pryor, ko Cecily McNeil,ā, ki a Annette Scullion mō ā rātou mahi hei ētita marika i ngā tau i mua. Ko NauMai ia e pānui nei i ngā kōrero mō te Hāhi, mō te Whakawhanaungatanga o Ngā Hāhi, mō te mātauranga Katorika, ngā kura, ngā pārihi, ngā hapori me ngā karere mō te whai tika, ngā take me ngā kaupapa i ngā Rohe Pīhopa Katorika o te Papaioea me te Rohe Matua o te Te Ūpoko o te Ika.
He mea whakahirahira a NauMai ki nga Here Ūkārie Māori nō te mea he mea e tūhono nei, e whāngai nei i ngā mahi pai i ngā Rohe Pīhopa o te Papaiōea me te Rohe Matua o te Te Ūpoko o te Ika.
Kua manaakihia a NauMai e au i ngā tau kua hipa ki ngā kupu whakamāori me ngā huritao. Ka whakatairangatia e ō mātou hapori ngā kohinga kōrero mō ngā whānau whakapono huri noa i ngā Rohe Pīhopa e rua arā He Hīkoi Whakapono. He mea whakaata tuakiri mōku, mōu, mō ō tātou māmā, pāpā, mokopuna me te āhua o to matou noho manawareka i roto i te oranga o te Hāhi.
Nā tō tātou poropiti nā Kingi Tāwhiao te kī ‘My word is my mana’ arā, ‘Ko taku kupu, ko taku mana’. Nā tāu mahi pai rawa kua whakamanahia ō mātou kupu.
I TĒNEI RĀ e mihi kau ana ki ngā mahi pai rawa a Annette Scullion i ngā tau kua hori. Annette, āu kupu, tō momo, tō ngākau nui me āu mahi arohanui ka puritia tonutia i te mā me te pango – me ngā tae – mō ngā tau e tū mai nei. Kia ora rā koe, ā, kia whakapaingia koe e te Atua.
Importance of community newspapers
John Spring, Managing Director, Beacon Media Group
The media industry in New Zealand is going through a difficult period, with pressures from increased costs and declining advertising revenues. Businesses are restructuring, cutting costs and reducing staff levels with redundancies.
Television has been heading these changes and newspapers have also been affected. NZME recently closed 14 community newspapers and Stuff closed about 28 community newspapers a couple of years ago.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some local communities, faced with being without their local newspaper, have started up replacement newspapers, and NZME sold some papers to community owners.
The communities can see the important role their local newspaper plays and don’t want to lose that.
The Wairoa Star is a great example of the community pulling together to restart their community newspaper. After the Wairoa Star was closed, local iwi, Tatau Tatau o Te Wairoa, started up a new paper.
Their reporters write the articles and advertising reps sell the ads, Beacon provides the production services and the printing.
It’s really encouraging to see the interest in starting up a newspaper. So, while the industry is facing tough times and going through a lot of changes, there is optimism with communities keen to have their own local newspaper, providing that essential service for a democratic, informed and functioning community.
Beaconhas its own newspaper printing press based in Whakatāne, and it is the only independent newspaper printer in the North Island. We have been printing WelCom for 40 years – starting in Whanganui, then Hastings, then Whakatane. Thank you for your business and well done on your achievement in publishing your newspaper for your readers and advertisers for over four decades.
