Fr Frank Roach (as shown on the order of service)

The reason for the first order came from the Gospel reading — Luke 17:-10 — used at the funeral Mass, celebrated at St Therese church in Mangere East on December 22, explained Fr Neil Darragh in the homily.

“We are unfaithful servants. We have only done what we needed to do, we have only done what we were told to do, we have only done what we should do. In other words, we do not expect any compliments, we do not expect praise, we do not expect recognition, for what we do,” Fr Darragh said.

“And this is how, especially a priest, should live. It is, in fact, how Frank lived,” he added.

“So I am very nervous about suggesting any of the good points about Frank,” he said, to much laughter from the congregation.

But Fr Darragh found ways to point out many of Fr Roach’s good points — his love of reading and of history, his friendliness to ministers from other churches, his hospitality, his generosity, and his love of music.

Fr Darragh fondly recalled Fr Roach’s sense of humour.

The homilist referred to the photo on the front of the order of service, saying it captured something about Fr Roach. He is anticipating that we will indulge in some type of humour,here at the funeral. It is going to be something we can laugh at, Fr Darragh said.

“And that is what he was very good at. He could make people laugh.

“When you went into a place where there was a gathering, or a dinner, or lunch or something, where he was, nearly always there was laughter. He had that talent. He knew he had it and he wanted to use it, because that was good. . . .”

“Perhaps the most important of all, he could laugh at himself. And he quite often did tell stories about himself that were humorous stories that made him look silly, as Fr Frank would say, but they were meant to be humorous.”

One such story concerned the time a loud party was taking place next to where Fr Roach was saying evening Mass, Fr Darragh said.

Loud music and drunken laughter and shouting went on until the early hours of the morning, and Fr Roach went to the property, where he shouted at those present to stop the noise. It was disrupting his concentration, which was focused on rewriting his homily for the next Mass. He told those at the party that if the noise didn’t stop, he would curse that house.

Now these are fairly strong words, and no priest should ever say them, Fr Darragh noted.

But Fr Roach was obviously taken seriously. About five minutes later the noise stopped, and “Frank never got a wink of sleep for the rest of that night because he was guilty and worried” about what he did, and he knew it was wrong.

He told this story, and at the end of the story, he would say “wrong again”, which he often said, Fr Darragh added.

Fr Roach died in Auckland Hospital on December 18, aged 89, after a short illness. In his priestly ministry, he served at Te Awamutu, Papatoetoe and Grey Lynn, before a ministering in Samoa in the early 1970s.

Returning to Auckland in 1974, he worked in the Samoan Chaplaincy and was parish priest at Grey Lynn, Hillsborough, Waiuku, Mangere East, Pukekohe and Panmure parishes, before his retirement in 2014.

Fr Roach was ordained in 1957, before Vatican II, and “he didn’t agree with a lot of the changes that happened. He thought they messed up the Church, and he said so”, Fr Darragh said.

But Fr Roach didn’t think priests should return to wearing elaborate garments, and he was no fan of enforcement of some rules and regulations for the sake of it. But he did think the rules should be there.

“He and I met in the early 70s, and from then on we were friends,” Fr Darragh said.

The two disagreed on “almost everything theological, but we were still good friends for all that time”.

“When [Fr Roach] went to Samoa in the 1970s, he was a bit despondent about the condition of the Church. But when he went there, he found a Church that was vibrant, strong and musical. Samoa, in a sense, was his renewal.”

Fr Darragh spent a few minutes of the homily at Mangere East speaking in Samoan, with his remarks drawing several ripples of laughter from many in the congregation.

Fr Roach also became involved with the Tongan community in Auckland — and he was one of the founders of the Tongan Catholic community here, Fr Darragh added.

At the end of the homily, Bishop Patrick Dunn thanked Fr Darragh for giving “a eulogy that was not a eulogy”.

At the start of the Mass, in welcoming people, Bishop Dunn noted how many people considered Fr Roach as “family”.

The bishop said people gathered for the funeral as a type of “extended family”.

He also noted Fr Roach’s love for his own family.

Bishop Michael Gielen and Bishop Denis Browne were among the concelebrants at the Mass. Fr Roach’s body was interred at Panmure Catholic cemetery.

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This is what Fr Neil Darragh suggested in his talk at the Auckland Priests
Assembly in Waipuna Hotel on September 10.

“One of the most interesting things … when you start talking about clericalism is how many people (I mean priests) do want to talk about it, how many people think it’s a bad thing, and how many people don’t think it applies to themselves. We don’t see that clericalism applies to ourselves,” he said.

He said clericalism is often not something that priests do but rather situations priests find themselves living in.

“Most of us live in situations where clericalism is accepted. In other words, the lay people that we most associate with are into it as well. They take it (clericalism) from us,” he said.

Fr Darragh noted that entitlement, a word often applied to young people
today, can also be applied to priests.

“Priests often think we are not governed by the same rules as the laity are
in terms of ethics,” he said.

Priests often think they do not need to get themselves involved in the big
ethical issues in society today, such as reducing inequality and protecting the environment.

“[We] say we’re busy about the church, sacraments and all, and [we’re] looking after the sick. We can’t get into these big issues. Somebody else can do that,” Fr Darragh said. “That’s priests claiming entitlement.”

At the talk, Fr Darragh asked the participants to do a reflection on whether clericalism is present in their parish.

He gave them a “Clericalism: Parish Self-Test” paper that included statements such as “in our parish, the priest (or deacon) is the only one who gives homily at Sunday Eucharists”.

The more statements the priests ticked, the more it showed there is clericalism in their parish.

The statements in the paper illustrated the dependence of the parish on the
priest such that there can be no liturgy when the priest is not available, nor is there training for “lay presiders” who can lead liturgies such as funerals or house blessings in the parish.

“Lay ministers cannot do their jobs spontaneously. They have to be chosen
and trained,” Fr Darragh said. “A priest is responsible for capacity building within his parish.”

Fr Darragh also said the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had recommendations for the Australian
Catholic Church which we need to consider in our own dioceses.

These recommendations include transparency, accountability, consultation
and the participation of lay men and women; improvement of processes
for selecting, screening and training of candidates for the clergy and religious life; and implementation of professional development, pastoral supervision and performance appraisals for priests and religious.

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Then Bishop Dunn led a procession in which the graves of deceased clergy were blessed in the cemetery next to the church. The procession concluded at the grave of Archbishop James Liston.

At the Mass, the following jubilarians were acknowledged: 60 years – Msgr Brian Arahill, Msgr Ray Green, Frs Conrad Bryant, SM, Dave Mullins, SM, and Denzil Meuli;
50 years – Frs Matthew Clerkin, OFM Cap, Neil Darragh, Chris Loughnan, OP, Bruce McGill, CSsR, Terry Montgomery and Justin Taylor, SM; 40 years — Bishop Patrick Dunn, Fr Tim Costello, SM; 25 years — Frs Arul Arokiam, OFM, Andrew Antonio, MF,
Michael Endemann, Iosefo Timu, MF, Stephen Berecz.

The homily at the Mass was preached by Fr Justin Taylor, SM, based on the readings for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.

The Gospel of the day recounted Jesus casting the money changers and merchants from the Temple precinct in Jerusalem.

Fr Taylor noted that “we must not think that we have domesticated God in a building. Buildings come and buildings go, the Bible tells us, and God is free”.

God would “have us look to his more permanent dwelling place, in his Son and in ourselves”.

“Priests work in temples, even if they can, at times, do without them,” Fr Taylor noted.

“The risk is that priests might become mere administrators of sacred buildings, or mere functionaries of sacred institutions.

“Pope Francis keeps warning about that, but it is a classic theme of preachers and spiritual writers in all ages — how easy it is to grab the shadow and let go of the
substance. To hang on to the symbol without really grasping what is symbolised.

“At a much deeper level than a building and the rites administered there, we priests are called to loving service of Jesus, in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell — and to loving service of his people who are God’s temple and in whom the
spirit of God dwells.

They are the twin poles of our priesthood  . . .”

“The more we really love Jesus, the more we will love and serve his people,” Fr Taylor added.

“And the more we are intent on tending the flock of God, the more we will be drawn into loving friendship with the chief shepherd.”

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Living in the Planet Earth, the latest by Accent Publications, speaks right into one of the major issues of our time and challenges those of us who live and worship in faith communities to examine if we accept that buying into and interacting with ecological issues is part of our core belief.

A wide range of writers has contributed chapters.

The earlier sections of the book explore the biblical sources of creation, different cultural understandings of the relation of God and the Earth (Maori, Muslim, Quaker, Sikh, and Catholic).

The second part describers various conservation and ecological awareness-raising activities and journeys.

I really enjoyed Manuka Henare’s essay on the Maori perspective, Zain Ali’s essay “Maui meets Mohammed” and, having studied and enjoyed Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, found interesting Ann Nolan’s exploration of the shift of thinking from an anthropocentric view of the world to a more holistic view of an integral ecology. And, of course, anything Joy Cowley writes is both a delight and a challenge as with disarming simplicity she goes
straight to the spirituality of nature.

However, the practical applications of this ecological theological thinking were what I found challenging and fascinating. How do faith communities engage with ecology? How do they make it central to their faith life and action? — through coastal and lenten pilgrimages, various types of organic and community gardens, the setting up an environmental care group that promotes reflection on various dates and created Creation Stations, and Creation Rosaries, to the establishment of the Korimako Dominican Ecology Centre near Invercargill and the Mercy Sisters Papatuanuku Ki Taurangi Earth Promise.

The biblical sources, the tying together of practical action, prayer, reflection and spirituality,  the individual journeys, the group initiatives, are all embraced in this volume of essays, which should inspire and encourage other faith communities to take up the challenge of making ecological issues central to their way of being.

Pat Lythe works in the Pastoral Office and is the coordinator of the Pastoral Services team in Auckland diocese. 

LIVING IN THE PLANET EARTH — Faith communities and ecology edited by Neil Darragh (Accent Publications 2016, accent publications.co.nz or Accent Publications, Newman Hall, 16 Waterloo Quadrant, Auckland 1010); $35.75 plus $5.75 postage. 

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From left, Glimpses of Hope editor Fr John Dunn and four Irish-born priests: Paddy Collins, Leo Doyle, Martin Bugler and Matthew Clerkin, OFM Cap.

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