Jean Baptiste Pompallier

Jean-Baptiste François Pompallier (11 December 1802 – 21 December 1871) was the first Roman Catholic bishop in New Zealand and, with priests and brothers of the Marist order, he organised the Roman Catholic Church throughout the country. He was born in Lyon, France. He arrived in New Zealand in 1838 as Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania, but made New Zealand the centre of his operations. In 1848 he became the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland. He returned to France in 1868 and died in Puteaux, near Paris, on 21 December 1871, aged 69. His exhumed remains were returned to New Zealand in 2001 and they were re-interred under the altar at St Mary's, Motuti, in 2002. Educational institutions named in his honour include Pompallier Catholic College, Whangarei (1969). There are Pompallier houses at Sacred Heart College, Auckland (1903), St. Bernard's College, Lower Hutt (1947), Carmel College, Auckland (1957),St John's College, Hamilton (1961), St Peter's College, Gore (1969), Liston College, Auckland (1974) and other New Zealand secondary and primary schools. Sancta Maria College, Auckland (2004) commemorates Pompallier and his work through the name of his schooner, the Sancta Maria.

On Trinity Sunday 1835, the pope created the Vicariate Apostolic of Western Oceania. The priests chosen for Western Oceania came from the newly founded French order the Society of Mary (Marists) formed by Father Jean-Claude Colin in Lyon. On 29 April 1836 Pope Gregory XVI endorsed the Marist order; he assigned to it the mission of Western Oceania. Pompallier, who had been closely associated with the nascent Marists, was appointed on 13 May 1836 Vicar Apostolic, and consecrated Titular Bishop of Maronea. Up to this time the Society of Mary had not been officially organised and Pompallier as a bishop did not make his profession with the first priests of the new society on 24 September 1836, but in every other respect he was a Marist, and Rome regarded him as such prior to his appointment.

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