At this period in our history parishioners were largely of Irish or English descent and this remained so until the end of the 1930’s. New settlers mainly from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga in the first instance started to arrive until today when our parish makeup is a microcosm of Auckland with its diversity of cultures.
When first deciding to feature this aspect of our history we had expected to see some national differences in the style of certificate provided. Martin Ng who made his First Communion in Taiping although living in Malaysia has provided the only distinctively different certificate we have.
We have certificates representing five of our early families – Buchanan, Forsman, Tooman, McDermott and Crowley taking us to the end of the 1930’s. Dominic Joseph has provided his certificate from Fiji in the 1940’s. Jannie van Hees and Annette O’Gorman their local certificates for 1950. Martin Ng his 1980 certificate and Mirelle Pereira her 1998 First Communion certificate from India and also her Confirmation certificate from Auckland in 2003.
Irene Maria Go has allowed us to use her Baptismal certificate from Manila although she lived in Hong Kong, and from the city of Toledo also in the Phillippines we have a certificate for Azariah Alfonte. Cecilia Bernard (Lober) was baptized in Samoa and at Nukualofa, Tonga Malia Foliaki was baptized by Bishop Rodgers who later became an auxiliary bishop of Auckland.
We thank our parishioners for their co-operation and trust these images of Catholic ‘rites of passage; will prove of interest to a wider community.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]