At our first Pastoral Area combined Mass on Pentecost Sunday; months of talking together dreaming and praying came together with Cardinal John’s decision about the name for our new Parish. In his letter to us he said;
“I am really grateful to you for all the work that has been done in consulting with the parish and putting forward these names. I accept that your preferred choice is “The Parish of the Blessed Suzanne Aubert” however as you know there is a difficulty naming a parish after someone who is not yet beatified or canonised….(after consultation with a cannon lawyer) I was told very clearly that I could not do that.
Therefore I agree….that the interim name should be “The Catholic Parish of Wellington South” and then as soon as we hear news of Suzanne Auberts beatification we could proceed to change the name of the parish to “The Parish of the Blessed Suzanne Aubert”
The next phase in moving towards our new parish is discernment and prayer on how we fit our boat. This boat we are building is not a cruse ship; (to steal Pope Francis image) we are building a hospital ship where we are all crew not passengers so we all have a critical part to play. Watch this space for more information.
Pastoral Area Transition Team communication group