Comments on: Central parishes get more time https://www.nzcatholic.org.nz/2014/07/17/central-parishes-get-more-time/ The New Zealand National Catholic Newspaper Wed, 27 Jan 2016 01:24:12 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4 By: Jan https://www.nzcatholic.org.nz/2014/07/17/central-parishes-get-more-time/comment-page-1/#comment-4226 Sun, 03 Aug 2014 06:58:20 +0000 http://www.nzcatholic.org.nz/?p=7588#comment-4226 I take it that Mons Murray’s comment that “the plan was inspired by Pope Francis’s call for priests to be shepherds who ‘smell like their sheep'” is just his sense of humour because this plan will ensure that Hamilton City Catholics are unlikely to even get near a priest let alone a priest have a chance to smell like them. Easy enough to do in a place like Waihi and in outlying pastoral areas which have a much small number of Catholics. Churches for Sunday Mass in the majority of parishes in Hamilton are already filled to over-capacity with people standing in the foyer, etc. In Frankton Parish which has around 300 people at the 10am Mass the pastoral planners are talking about cutting out the 8.00 am Mass so everyone is wondering how the 200 plus people who attend that Mass are going to fit in to the 10.00am. One Mass was cut several years ago from the nearby St Peter Chanel parish meaning the overflow from there is at two parishes close by so they are already filled to capacity. Surely Bishop Browne should have called on a priest from Wellington City for this plan as the others appear to be completely out of touch with Hamilton City’s situation.

Parking is also going to be a problem with the nearby streets of most parishes already filled to capacity. Now with baptisms taking place during Mass the long-suffering neighbours have to expect their streets to be jammed with cars for a lot longer and it is uncomfortably hot in most of the churches I’ve been to.

It is a complete fiasco – not well thought out at all. Churches filled to over-capacity now are going to be in breach of health and safety regulations if more people are expected to crowd in to already over-filled churches.

The solution is to bring in priests from overseas to cater for the at least 50% immigrant Catholic population in Hamilton. For one thing they should have priests who can speak their language and who can cater for their pastoral needs, such as confession, etc, as some older immigrants have difficulty speaking English.

Failing that, then unfortunately there will be no choice but to close down some of the outlying parishes with a smaller populations and the priests sent to the larger pastoral areas with the bigger population. That is the logical step to take.

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