Holy Name Seminary

Holy Name Seminary was a Roman Catholic seminary staffed by the Society of Jesus established in New Zealand for the training of priests. It was first opened in 1947 in Christchurch and closed at the end of 1978. From 1969 until 2000 this old white-painted building stood nowhere on the site of Holy Name Seminary on Riccarton Road. Instead, the seminary was an addition built onto a very grand, two-storey, colonial, red-brick homestead which was erected and lived in by the eminent Kincaid family. Establishment With Holy Cross College, the New Zealand national major seminary, not taking school age students from 1932 and with a number of the Catholic secondary schools in the country being used as a recruiting ground for the Marist order, the secondary school training of seminarians for the secular clergy was a cause for concern to the New Zealand bishops. In 1936 the combined Council of Australian and New Zealand Bishops discussed the possibility of a national minor seminary for New Zealand. In 1939 the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith sent an official instruction advising New Zealand to establish a minor seminary. A year later the issue was raised again when the Apostolic Delegate visited Holy Cross College and suggested the establishment of a minor seminary on the same site. Bishop Patrick James Lyons of Christchurch, with the decisive support of Archbishop Liston of Auckland, decided to push the project, and the New Zealand bishops agreed to the setting up of the seminary to be sited in the Christchurch diocese. A large estate was purchased at 265 Riccarton Road (later renamed Antonio Hall), Christchurch and the seminary was opened in February 1947 by Archbishop Panico the Apostolic Delegate, who came over from Sydney, and with members of the New Zealand hierarchy and the Prime Minister Peter Fraser in attendance. Minor seminary The Society of Jesus staffed the seminary and the first rector was Father Noel Hehir SJ with Fathers Leo Perry SJ and Gerard McGinty SJ to assist him. Their arrival (with the Apostolic Delegate) in New Zealand was dramatic as their ship, MS Wanganella, went aground on Barrett Reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, and they had to be rescued. The seminary was in effect a boys' secondary school for the early training of those boys who wished to become priests in later life. The course of studies was appropriately designed and included Greek, Latin and History.