ST PATRICK AND PN'S CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

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Palmerston North was once infamously derided by John Cleese as "the suicide capital of New Zealand". It's flat and windy but it does have a river. And trees. Its saving grace is the Gothic Catholic church on Broadway designed by Francis William Petre. 

Its exterior is still beautiful, its spire is still adorned with a statue of St Patrick. What's he doing up there? He's staying put, claiming it as his church - St Patrick's - as it was from the first Mass, on St Patrick's Day 1877. Three successive churches were St Patrick's, until Palmerston North became a suffragan diocese of Wellington in 1980 and its first bishop (now emeritus) Peter Cullinane renamed the last of them. +Cullinane's moniker was rejected by Rome and by St Patrick himself apparently, as his statue refused to budge, but +Cullinane ignored the Vatican and the saint, and St Patrick's Church became the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. 

Its sublimely simple interior (above) once spoke of the transcendent, of the mystery of  the Mass of Ages, "the most beautiful thing this side of heaven" (Father Faber) for which the church was built. Look at it now (below).

Note people chatting, backs turned to the Blessed Sacrament (concealed at upper left)

Angled 'modular arrangement' of seating 

One can only imagine, now, how the hues of sunlight once filtered through the glorious stained glass to colour the original, austere interior. There's no austerity now and no need for mental resources either, in the renovated cathedral embellished with murals, carpet, cushions and OHP screens. We see how God has fallen from favour and in the emasculated liturgy of the Novus Ordo Missae (NO or 'New Mass), how man has usurped God's place. 

St Patrick's Church celebrated the usus antiquior (the traditional Latin Mass), giving God His due - adoration, thanksgiving, atonement (reparation) and petition (intercession). In the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, at the NO, how many congregants realise that these are still the "Four Ends", the purposes of the Mass?

The original, simple pews were focussed squarely and humbly on the (literally) high altar, as if perennially anticipating the manifestation of the Son of God - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - called down by the priest at the moment of consecration; a peerless miracle wrought by the same Power that said "Be light made. And light was made (Gen 1,3).

In the second image above we see the pews which made kneeling fairly easy replaced by chairs and comfy cushions, a 'modular arrangement' which gives a better view of the Cranmer table holding pride of place in front of the disused altar (which has literally come down in the world and is rumoured to have been destined for removal from the premises, once all the benefactors who paid for it have shuffled off this mortal coil). And angled seating, incidentally, also gives Massgoers a better view of one another.

The rear portion of the nave is raked, so that the typically Catholic Massgoers who stick to the back of the church are looking down on the altar. The idea is borrowed from the Masons, those ancient enemies of the Church who give the created superiority over the Creator. The front does a zig-zag around the sanctuary-which-is-not-a-sanctuary, as the altar rails have gone, so that female lectors, sometimes in mini-skirts, or 'Ministers of the Eucharist' in trousers can come and go, and visitors to the Eucharistic or day chapels can cut the corners on the way.

 “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Cor 14:33–35). Moreover, the same Apostle says to Saint Timothy: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent” (1 Tim 2:11–12).

In accordance with this apostolic judgment, the Church, for nearly 2,000 years, did not permit any woman to exercise a liturgical ministry in the sanctuary. Thus, the Council of Laodicea (365 AD) stated in Canon 44: “Women may not approach near the altar.” But the Church, being guided by the Holy Spirit, cannot err in the pleasing worship of Almighty God. Therefore her constant customs indicate a divine disposition, and all discordant novelties are to be rejected.  

(I)n Sacred Scripture the Word of God is always compared to seed, and the preacher to the one who plants the seed in the soil. The one who hears the Word is the mother whose faith receives the seed - the womb in which the seed is implanted, begins to grow, and with patience bears fruit. For this reason, the congregation of the faithful is the image of the Virgin Mary, while the lector is the image of God the Father, implanting in their hearts the seed of the Word, Jesus Christ, even as He did through the instrumentality of the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation. ...

(T)he now nearly universal custom of women reading at Mass deserves to be abolished as the historical aberration and theological danger that it is. Such a restoration of ancient discipline would be one more way to celebrate and consolidate the authentic teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which did not breathe a word about opening up liturgical ministries to women, and which expressly stipulated: “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23).

Hence, for a woman to be proclaiming the Word is self-contradictory: it makes the female who receives the seed the male who issues the seed.https://onepeterfive.com/should-women-be-lectors-at-mass/

Zig-zagging around the 'sanctuary'

In the tradition of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, aesthetics are the presumed preserve of the parish priest, who for most of the 20th century was of Irish ethnicity if not birth (as evidenced by the cathedral's original name). Spiritually speaking that was a blessing - driven from the Emerald Isle by poverty and hardship they were men of piety who did not scorn to repair to Our Lady with the Rosary and other Marian devotions, or to encourage the faithful to do the same in the Legion of Mary, the Holy Name Society, Catholic Women's League and so on. 

However, pious Oirish families had no time or money to indulge in consideration of things of beauty being a joy forever, or to hone their sense of same. Built by Irish priests, churches resembling supermarkets and libraries are everywhere in New Zealand, especially those built or "modernised" (the very adjective hints at heresy) in the last 50 years or so - as the cathedral of the Holy Spirit demonstrates. 

Of course, lots of people don't notice or care about aesthetics. Fine. But many do. Many believe, and feel passionately, that the house of God should be beautiful, and in keeping with canon law, and that the ancestors who built their church with galas and garden parties and concerts should be honoured also. It would be nice if PPs and/or parish councils consulted these people before assaulting churches which do not belong to Father (who will inevitably move on), or to a group of parishioners who might resign tomorrow. 

Installation elsewhere in the PN Diocese, for example, of handrails on sanctuary steps tells of congregations inexorably aging, of a PP and/or the lectors or 'ministers of the Eucharist' who are elderly and infirm; or clear windows so Father can see how far away the late-comers are, or clocks so he can see when to stop his homily (in five minutes, give or take a few seconds).

For Massgoers the outside world should not exist. For at least one hour in the week a Catholic's attention should be devoted entirely to the Presence within (if they're in a state of grace), which makes visuals in the church all the more vital to those who care, to their inner peace and powers of concentration on the miracle of the Eucharist unfolding before them. It's the Mass that matters, and the God Who gave His life for us deserves the very finest accoutrements a parish can afford. The more generous it is to God, the more generous He is with blessings for the congregation. 

 

The cathedral's faux high altar

The cathedral's high altar is faux. Catholics at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit no longer worship "the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar" as they did in St Patrick's: God is reserved in a tabernacle well away from the altar, which now is now merely a nice backdrop for a Protestant-style table and the 'presider's' chair.

The Most Holy Sacrament is to be reserved in a tabernacle in a part of the church that is noble, prominent, readily visible, and adorned in a dignified manner” and furthermore “suitable for prayer” by reason of the quietness of the location, the space available in front of the tabernacle, and also the supply of benches or seats and kneelers (Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum).

The Blessed Sacrament Chapel at the cathedral has plastic flowers and a single prie-dieu. Only rarely is there anyone kneeling on it. 

The text for the image of the altar on the diocesan website states:

The marble high altar was dedicated to Monsignor James McManus, 7th parish priest, and installed in July 1963. Its 200 pieces weigh 7 tons and were assembled between two pillars close to the rear sanctuary wall. It is somewhat ironic that this work was carried out during Vatican II: in only a few years both the altar in that form and the altar rails were to become hindrances to modern liturgical practice. During renovations in 1988 it was decided to keep the altar and move it forward to fashion the Day Chapel. 

 

The day chapel, once St Patrick's sanctuary  

 

That  word "modern" is the key to unlocking the ideology behind the latter-day Reformation of St Patrick's. Modernism was denounced as heresy by successive popes of the 20th century - and the 'liturgical practice' is now the Bugninian Mass. Paul VI's Novus Ordo Missae was imposed in 1969 after its concoction, in a dizzying 5 years, by a prelate widely reckoned to be a Mason (with advice from Protestant clergy, deliberately and professedly to make the Mass more acceptable to Protestants), replacing the traditional Mass which had grown organically throughout 1500 centuries. St Patrick's Church was designed for the latter; the Cathedral for the former. 

The marble altar was probably too heavy to bother moving. It's there merely as window dressing and we may thank God that it didn't end up in the Manawatu; many high altars were dumped in rivers and harbours in the wreckovations of the '60s and '70s. What's used now instead of an altar for the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God is something (pictured below) commonly named the Cranmer table after Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII's  Archbishop of Canterbury, who turned the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary into a nice, Protestant, memorial meal. 

The Cranmer table

Its design means that the officiating priest (or priests plural when concelebrating, O me miserum), stands behind it like Dad waiting to carve the roast for his family - who are metaphorically starving for the spiritual meat missing from NO homilies, based as they are on skimpy Mass texts which completely omit the Offertory. If the high altar's tabernacle were still occupied as it was in the past by the Real Presence, the priest would be turning his back on God.

As it is, the God Who died on the Cross for our salvation is sidelined in a glorified cupboard, unceremoniously divested of the crucifix and altar with which the tabernacle must be conjoined because all three elements point to the Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). 

The new tabernacle: no altar, no crucifix

The cathedral was closed for months on end after an arson attack in April 2023 damaged a glass mural described on the diocesan website by Young Catholics Team Leader Nick Wilson:

Two glass panes run from the floor close to the ceiling behind the altar. Powerful red lamps throw light up into the glass that has flames etched into it, making it look like it is on fire – a symbol of the Spirit.

Good to have the explanation. We'd never have guessed. 

Modern screens: not a good fit with the stained glass windows   

 

Not only the glass murals flanking the altar, but also the painted screens either side of the sanctuary, juxtaposed as they are with glorious stained windows, are iconoclastic to say the least. And then there's the question of the Stations of the Cross. St Patrick's Church had large framed painted works; the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit has these:

 

The Stations are miniscule

Bronze and marble are materials worthy of better workmanship than this, and the noble proportions of the cathedral are worthy of larger Stations of the Cross than these, which are miniscule.

Further embellishments considered necessary for Palmerston North's Cathedral which were entirely missing from St Patrick's Church are Maori carvings on the aisle end of every row of chairs. They are said to be "an expression of faith in wood from the six tribal groups of the Diocese".

Tānenuiārangi is the common ancestor of the Rangitāne people. He is one of New Zealands most notable ancestors.  Also known as Tāne-te-waiora and Tāne-matua, he helped separate Rangi-nui and Papa-tū-ā-nuku so the sun would shine on their children. He also ascended to Te Toi-o-ngā-rangi to bring back the three kits of knowledge. (Deacon Danny Karatea-Goddard.)https://pndiocese.org.nz/news-and-events/cathedral-of-the-holy-spirit/

Not to put too fine a point on it, what's described above by Deacon Danny Karatea-Goddard on the diocesan website is pagan spirituality. It has nothing to do with Christ or the Gospel or the Catholic Church. The images on the chairs in the cathedral may well be Christian in intent but there seems to be no information available on the diocesan website to interpret them for cathedral parishioners and visitors, the vast majority of whom are non-Maori and to whom the carvings look just like Rotorua's.  

Pachamama in St Peter's Basilica, 2019

Since those carvings were made and installed the Mystical Body of Christ has seen the pagan goddess Pachamama worshipped in the Vatican Gardens in the presence of Pope Francis and introduced into St Peter's Basilica, an event attributed by Cardinal Raymond Burke to "diabolical forces" which needed to be "vanquished by the grace of God". 

Since Pachamama's appearance in the heart of the Christendom, race and religious relations have deteriorated in New Zealand and all around the world. The prayers and reparation to the Blessed Virgin Mary requested in 2019 for the Pachamama idolatry by Cardinal Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider would seem needed now more than ever. 

On the great Solemnity of Pentecost we may turn to the Holy Spirit for Whom Palmerston North's Cathedral was named, and to His Immaculate Spouse who experienced the Holy Ghost at her Immaculate Conception and always knew Him intimately, asking her prayers for New Zealand, for the world and for the Church at this perilous moment in history.  

The Crowning of the Virgin by the Trinity (detail) by Velasquez

Come Holy Spirit; come by the powerful intercession of the Most Immaculate Heart of Mary, Thy Beloved Bride