{{distinguish|St Mary's College, Auckland}} {{Short description|Catholic seminary in New Zealand}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=April 2013}} [[File:St Mary's College and St Joseph's Orphanage.jpg|thumb|St Mary's College in Takapuna, pictured in the early 1920s after becoming St Joseph's Orphanage]]
'''St Mary's Seminary''' in Auckland, New Zealand, was established in 1850 by New Zealand's first Catholic bishop, Jean Baptiste François Pompallier. It operated until 1869.<ref name="GSC">[http://www.gsc.ac.nz/intro-history.htm Good Shepherd College website, ''Our History''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309130115/http://www.gsc.ac.nz/intro-history.htm |date=9 March 2012 }} (retrieved 6 December 2011)</ref>
From his arrival in 1838, Pompallier had worked energetically to train priests locally for his new mission.<ref name="GSC"/> In April 1850 he returned from a trip to Europe with ten seminarians and established a seminary in Auckland to complete their formation.<ref name="King">Michael King, ''God's Farthest Outpost: A History Of Catholics In New Zealand'', Penguin Books, Auckland, 1997, p. 73.</ref> The completion of the training of the new seminarians was carried out quickly so that within five weeks all but one of them were ordained.<ref name="King"/>
The seminary, which he named "St Mary's College", had Pompallier's Vicar General, the Rev. Louis Rozet, S.M., as its first Rector. It was first established on the North Shore of Auckland but was moved across Waitematā Harbour to Ponsonby in 1852.<ref name="King"/> The original seminary site is now occupied by St Joseph's Catholic School.
The Seminary survived for 19 years, until Pompallier retired and left New Zealand in 1869. St Mary's Seminary educated at least twenty-four priests<!--not counting the initial ten seminarians?-->,<ref name="GSC"/> all of them European and some of them already part-trained in Ireland or France.<ref name="King"/>
The college also educated many Māori catechists, some of whom were encouraged to stay on for training for the priesthood.<ref name="King"/> One, Keremeti Pine from Ōkaihau, was even sent to Rome, where for three years among seminarians from Africa and Asia, he spoke Latin and passable Italian. However, no Māori candidate for the priesthood was ordained at this time.<ref name="King"/> The Māori catechists, however, proved to be the backbone of the development of the Catholic faith among the Māori during the remaining decades of the 19th century.<ref name="King"/>
==See also==
* {{Annotated link |Roman Catholicism in New Zealand}} * {{Annotated link |Holy Cross College (New Zealand)}} * {{Annotated link |Marist Seminary}} * {{Annotated link |Good Shepherd College}} * {{Annotated link |Holy Name Seminary}} * {{Annotated link |Hato Petera College}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{New Zealand Catholic Dioceses}} {{New Zealand Catholic Bishops}} {{Takapuna}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:St Mary's Seminary}} Category:Educational institutions established in 1850 Category:Seminaries and theological colleges in New Zealand Category:Catholic universities and colleges in New Zealand Category:Christianity in Auckland Category:Educational institutions disestablished in 1869 Category:Former theological colleges Category:Education in Auckland Category:Defunct universities and colleges in New Zealand Category:Buildings and structures in Auckland Category:1850 establishments in New Zealand Category:1869 disestablishments in New Zealand Category:Takapuna