Holy Cross College (New Zealand)

Holy Cross College or Holy Cross Seminary is the national Roman Catholic seminary of New Zealand for the training of priests. It was first opened in 1900 in Mosgiel and was relocated to Auckland in 1997.

In the late nineteenth century, although there were 90,000 Catholics constituting about 14 per cent of the total population, New Zealand had no seminary for training priests

In 1850 Bishop Pompallier the first bishop, had established a seminary in Auckland, St Mary's Seminary, which resulted in the ordination of more than twenty four priests over two decades. Hampered by financial difficulties and personality problems, the seminary closed in 1869. Various bishops, particularly Patrick Moran first Bishop of Dunedin, had expressed concern over the absence of a national seminary. Its lack became pressing when New Zealand was created an ecclesiastical province with Wellington as the Metropolitan See in 1887. Prior to this the New Zealand Bishops were largely influenced by Cardinal Moran in Sydney to send seminarians to his Manly seminary where Bishop Michael Verdon, the second Bishop of Dunedin (1896-1918) had been Rector.

In 1896 Verdon expressed the need for local training from a particular perspective when he complained that his "most promising student James Liston had returned from Manly to New Zealand "undernourished and unwell". Verdon wrote to Dr. Murphy (Verdon's successor as Rector at Manly) complaining that Liston: " ... was in very poor health indeed when he came home in December and his parents were greatly troubled about him. They brought him to the best doctor in Dunedin who forbade them to send him again to Manly. His parents will keep him at home for some months and then will probably send him to Ireland to continue his studies". Verdon was determined that New Zealand should have its own seminary and offered to take full personal responsibility for the venture. The other New Zealand Bishops accepted his offer.

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