Tui Motu InterIslands monthly independent Catholic magazine June 2013 | $6

HONE PAPITA RAUKURA ‘RALPH’ HOTERE . editorial a rare diamond

hildren are always curious . Daniels was destined for great things spirits soar because of the beauty As a boy of seven or eight, I from birth . A bright child, Ralph and aesthetic power they bring to was fascinated by my moth- excelled easily at primary school, their art . They stop us in our tracks . Cer’s diamond engagement ring . It was winning a boarding scholarship to Ralph’s ventures into such vital issues an unexceptional gold ring set with St . Peter’s Maori School (now Hato as the plight of the Algerian people three small diamonds . However, now Petera College) . Going to Auckland in their search for freedom from I can see why I was entranced . The Teachers College for two years seemed colonial domination, the Cuban mis- exceptional quality of these jewels a logical step forward . And from there, sile crisis, and proposed aluminium shone forth in their beauty and his known ability at art meant he was smelter at Aramoana are at the heart diaphanous colours . A jeweller told sent, in 1952, to Dunedin Teachers of this man’s work . He combined me that the natural quality of the College to train as an arts adviser in in his unique way a Māori heritage diamonds has been enhanced by fine schools . Such is the background of and a thoughtful but fiery spirit that bevelling of the jewels themselves — the man we honour . exposed what was not right in our ‘nature and nurture’ combined to A most important reason for world . The sheer beauty of all he did bring extraordinarily fine results . remembering this man is that if much inspires us . I hope you will enjoy the Hone Papita Raukura Hotere was of the art for which Ralph is rightly thoughtful ways in which Vincent a rare diamond . Rau, or Ralph as he famous had been disseminated in the O’Sullivan, Tony Eyre, and Gregory became known, was baptised and former Soviet Union, he would have O’Brien have shown us the extraor- named ‘Hone Papita’ after Bishop spent years languishing in prison . It dinary in this generous and ordinary Jean Baptiste Pompallier, the first is the nature of the artist’s yearning man — a rare diamond indeed . Catholic Bishop of Auckland, who to express universal themes: freedom, Daniel O’Leary pops up again died in 1871 . The Honourable Pita justice, peace and pressing issues of to remind us of Pentecost, while Sharples, speaking at Ralph’s funeral life and death . Artists are often thorns Peter Murnane takes another look Mass, saw this as adding to the in the side of society and government . at Reconciliation . David More spurs make-up of the man we celebrate . In They spur us to thinking anew, and thought on priestly ministry and his humorous way he said, “Ralph’s often raise to another level of thought ideas for broadening it, while Susan parents called him Hone Papita . I and perception what makes a reason- Smith looks again at evangelisation . was only christened Russell!” The able society tick . All artists (writers, A special word should be made of implication, as Mr Sharples saw it, poets, singers, musicians, composers) the Comment on p 5 in this edition . was that this ninth-born child of are questioners, prodders, making It points to an argument presently Tangirau Hotere and Ana Maria us uncomfortable, yet helping our circulating in the media at large: that

Editorial...... 2-3 Poem: Wisdom, understanding, counsel, Wellington Harbour contents Letters to the editor ...... 4 ...... 19 Helen Sligo Comment: Torture and the erosion of morality . . 5 Rhapsody in blue . . . and other tones: Richard Jackson letter from Gizo ...... 20–21 Hotere, Avignon and the year of the popes . . . 6–7 Peter Murnane Vincent O’Sullivan A call for change ...... 22–23 Hotere scrapbook – page 1 ...... 8 David More A journey of protest through art ...... 9–10 Hope for new evangelisation ...... 24–25 Tony Eyre Susan Smith A farewell to Ralph Hotere ...... 11–12 The widow of Nain ...... 26–27 Gregory O’Brien Kathleen Rushton Hotere scrapbook – page 2 ...... 13 Book and film reviews ...... 28–29 After the funeral ...... 14–15 Crosscurrents ...... 30 Gregory O’Brien Jim Elliston Poem beginning with a line by Ralph Hotere . . 16–17 Treaty settlements – celebrating Tūhoe! . . . . . 31 Bill Manhire Robert Consedine Fire in the depths of the earth ...... 18–19 A mother’s journal ...... 32 Daniel O’Leary Kaaren Mathias

Front cover photo: Ralph Hotere in Harbour Tce Front 2 Tui Motu InterIslands Garden [© copyright Ross Coombes] June 2013 reprehensible as it may be, torture acceptable in any circumstances . Tui Motu InterIslands has been helpful in the never ending With the joy of our regular con- now on Facebook search for terrorists and others tributors, this edition provides fine who seek to destabilise our world . fare of thoughtful material . Professor Jackson unseats this argu- KT ment with great clarity: torture is not

Greetings to all our Tui Motu sub- scribers, readers and supporters. from the chair This month we have launched unedin provided the best of We also approved plans for a sub- our very own social networking weather for the Tui Motu stantial redesign of the website, includ- website on Facebook. Board to meet over the ing eventually the possibility of making Please visit us on http:// Dweekend of 10-12 May . available the whole of our archival mate- w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m / Friday evening was devoted to rial to our reading audience . TuiMotuInterIslands and become a subscriber’s event . This meeting Considerable time was gainfully part of our online community of drew 55 people who were thrilled spent in doing formal planning for supporters . If you are already a with the presentation of Professor the future of the magazine . member of Facebook, click the Kevin Clements from the National Sunday morning saw the Board LIKE button on the Tui Motu Centre for Peace and Conflict dispersed to various of the Dunedin page to ensure you receive regular Studies here at the University of parish churches . There we promoted updates to your own homepage . Otago . His workshop presenta- the ideals of the magazine, and And we take this opportunity to tion touched on themes of justice, received many subscriptions and the introduce our Facebook adminis- peace, truth and mercy as paths to possibility of many more . trator, Dunedin born Theresa Eyre reconciliation within our troubled All in all it was a very productive Vossen who lives on Queensland’s world, and provoked much discus- and happy weekend . Gold Coast . See Theresa’s beauti- sion then and later . The Board And now for my push ‘from the fully reflective sharing on whatTui came back to Kevin’s provocative chair’ to you, our faithful readers . Motu means to her and join her ideas more than once . I want to draw your attention to in sharing your own comments The Board meeting focussed on Sister Elizabeth’s Pentecost ‘dreaming and views about articles from the IT matters and planning for the dream’ suggestion made in the May magazine that will be regularly future . We were happy to approve edition of TM . As a means of new posted on the page . of the magazine’s upgrading itself evangelisation and taking the idea of If you enjoy our Facebook to take on a Facebook page (see the the Year of Faith seriously, the content page, please share it with your sidebar) We are grateful to Theresa of Tui Motu may serve as a stimulus friends as we embrace this new Eyre Vossen for her ready acceptance to greater faith and action . I hope you means of communication to of administering this support to can take up the dream . broaden the outreach of Tui Motu members of our on-line community InterIslands. n of supporters . Philip Casey

Tui Motu – InterIslands is an independent, address: Independent Catholic Magazine Ltd, P O Box 6404, Dunedin North, 9059 Catholic, monthly magazine. It invites its phone: (03) 477 1449 readers to question, challenge and contrib- fax: (03) 477 8149 ute to its discussion of spiritual and social email: [email protected] issues in the light of gospel values, and in website: www.tuimotu.org the interests of a more just and peaceful TuiMotuInterIslands society. Inter-church and inter-faith dialogue is welcomed. editor: Kevin Toomey OP assistant editor: Elizabeth Mackie OP The name Tui Motu was given by Pa Henare Tate. illustrator: Donald Moorhead It literally means “stitching the islands together...”, directors: Susan Brebner, Rita Cahill RSJ, Philip Casey (chair), bringing the different races and peoples and Neil Darragh, Paul Ferris, Robin Kearns, Elizabeth Mackie OP faiths together to create one Pacific people of ISSM 1174-8931 God. Divergence of opinion is expected and will honorary directors: Pauline O’Regan RSM, Frank Hoffmann Issue number 172 normally be published, although that does not typesetting and layout: Greg Hings necessarily imply editorial commitment to the printers: Southern Colour Print, 1 Turakina Road, Dunedin viewpoint expressed. South, 9012

3 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 letters to the editor the wound of gender Does not the language we use letters to the editor reflect what we believe? Of course God Dr Anna Holmes is to be applauded We welcome comment, is neither a man nor a woman, but in her open letter to Pope Francis discussion, argument, debate . that fact is not reflected in Catholic (TM April 2013) . Her analysis of But please keep letters under language . The repression of the femi- the major wounds of the Church is nine in our theology and language 200 words . The editor reserves courageous and very relevant to a carries over into the Church’s minis- the right to abridge, while not world that is better informed today try . No doubt Pope Francis’ election changing the meaning . than any other time in its history . will rightly throw some much needed We do not publish anonymous In particular Dr Holmes continues focus onto poverty in the world . letters otherwise than in to highlight the very serious issue of But unless the Church faces this exceptional circumstances . gender imbalance in the Church . This core issue of gender, the five major Response articles (up to a issue perhaps pervades all the other wounds Dr Holmes speaks of will page) are welcome — but wounds the Church is currently suffer- remain . Let’s hope more people like please, by negotiation . ing from . In an article I was involved her will have the courage to speak out . in some time ago I attempted to show, David Loving-Molloy, Palmerston North at least linguistically, that Catholic theology, liturgy and general expres- sions of faith were almost exclusively expressed in masculine terminology . Correction To a person who was not In the article entitled “A nuclear weapon-free world?”, which Christian, reading through our appeared in our May issue, we described Commander Robert Green missal or other Catholic docu- as “the retired commander of a British nuclear submarine” . This ments would leave them with the was incorrect . Robert should have been described as “A retired impression that the Trinity was Commander in the Royal Navy whose final appointment was as Staff three men . The defence of the use Officer (Intelligence) to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet” . of language metaphorically does not justify the predominance of We apologize to Robert for our mistake . the male gender . Key Development Roles • Help Position TCI for the Future • Stakeholder Engagement and Curriculum Focus • Location Negotiable The Catholic Institute of Aotearoa New Zealand (“TCI”) is the tertiary education provider established in 2011 by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops. TCI works nationally, aims to be widely accessible and provides educational programmes and formation opportunities for the contemporary faith journey of New Zealand Catholics. TCI’s Partnerships & NCRS team, which includes the National Centre for Religious Studies (“NCRS”), is now seeking applications from suitably experienced professionals for two roles. Head of Partnerships & Director, NCRS Curriculum & Resource Developer In this newly re-shaped role you report to the Director of TCI and will: Reporting to the Head of Partnerships & Director, NCRS you will: • Building on the success of NCRS, ensure Catholic primary and • Develop curriculum and resources for religious education and secondary schools are provided with religious education catechetical programmes for Catholic schools and for parish curriculum that is faithful to Church documents and Church teaching; communities; • Lead the team developing and maintaining key relationships • Ensure all learning materials are faithful to Church teaching and between TCI and schools, parishes, key Catholic organisations, are relevant, accessible and appropriate for use with government bodies and other tertiary institutions; contemporary technologies; • Forge partnerships, identify market opportunities for TCI • Build close working relationships with national and diocesan courses and programmes and support catechesis in parishes religious education offi ces supporting the promotion of Catholic through the promotion of TCI’s community programmes; character in schools; • Be experienced in the development and promotion of education • Possess professional experience in the delivery and development activities and programmes and exhibit excellent project management, of religious education curriculum utilising modern strategic thinking and relationship development skills. educational technology. These are exciting and demanding roles in an organisation playing a leading role in the education and training of the New Zealand church for its evangelising mission. For more information contact Mike Hurdle or Catharina Vossen at MICAH Partners on phone: (04) 499 4749 or email your resume and covering letter to: [email protected]

4 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 comment torture and the erosion of morality

Richard Jackson

adly, the argument that some- or lie and send investigators in the intelligence for the authorities . But times torture works and it wrong direction . One thing we do if any newspaper was to publish should therefore be considered know is that extreme pain can lead an article debating the morality of asS a legitimate method of counter- to the loss of cognitive function . Try rape which cited cases where the terrorism has become increasingly reciting your phone number when rape of female terrorist suspects had visible in public debate, particularly you’ve just stubbed your toe, if you produced useful intelligence, there since the death of Osama bin Laden . don’t believe this . would be a storm of outrage . This is However, this is both a meaning- In the end, the real question is: because there are some moral lines less argument, and a dangerously in the event that the authorities have that should never be crossed . Torture immoral argument . It’s meaningless captured a terrorist suspect, should is one of them, and writing an article because it doesn’t tell you anything they ever use torture in order to which implies that because it is some- about the relative merit of using try and get information? Based on times effective, we ought to consider torture compared to other less vio- the massive amount of evidence we it as a legitimate subject for debate lent methods . The truth is that with have gathered, the simple answer is, is a way of trying to legitimise what enough tries, reading tea leaves will No . It would be highly negligent of should be unthinkable in our society . sometimes work, as will tossing a the authorities to use a method they Human rights organisations like coin . But neither of these methods know is so consistently unreliable . Amnesty and Human Rights Watch is recommended as a way of getting Imagine if we found out that they have documented the re-emergence life-saving intelligence to prevent were tossing a coin or reading tea of torture during the last decade terrorist attacks . In fact, there is a leaves to try and discern where the of the ‘war on terror’ . In part, this veritable mountain of evidence show- next bomb was going to go off? We’d is because politicians, the media ing that torture is highly ineffective be rightly outraged, as it would be and some academics have publicly compared to using other established simply irresponsible . come out and suggested that it may forms of investigation, which is why More important than the ques- be acceptable under some circum- most intelligence agencies around tion of effectiveness, however, is the stances . It is morally irresponsible the world, including the FBI, have question of morality . Even if torture to give any credence to arguments banned it . did work to save lives, would it be that torture, like rape or child abuse, A major study by Professor Darius acceptable ever to use it? The answer could ever be a legitimate practice, Rejali of Reed College suggests that is clearly, No . Torture is deeply no matter what the circumstances . interrogators who use torture might immoral because it is an attack on We ought to be outraged that such a as well ask simple yes/no questions defenceless people — like terrorism regressive and immoral viewpoint is and toss a coin for the answer instead . itself . It also produces permanent ever given public airing . We wouldn’t It would produce similar results . The moral and physical injury to the countenance a public debate on reality is that out of the hundreds of victim, and often the torturer too . whether rape is sometimes necessary; thousands of people who have been A seemingly innocuous torture why would we countenance a debate tortured in the ‘war on terror’ over technique like sleep deprivation can on whether torture sometimes is? The the past decade, torture supporters ruin a person’s sleeping patterns for New Zealand government ought to can point to only one or two dubious life, let alone forms of extreme physi- signal its opposition by suspending cases as evidence that it works . cal pain . The fact is that whether it cooperation with any state that prac- The reasons for the failure of tor- works ultimately has no bearing on tises torture, even when it involves ture are very easy to comprehend . The whether it is moral, otherwise we close allies like the United States . n fact is that there is no science of pain: might also consider other techniques every person reacts to pain differently, like rape or child abuse as legitimate and therefore prediction of its effects tools of intelligence gathering under Richard Jackson is Deputy Director of the is impossible . In other words, tortur- some circumstances . National Centre for Peace and Conflict ing people for information is always In fact, rape is frequently Studies, University of Otago. a gamble — like the toss of a coin . employed as a torture method, and Some will hold out forever, some may there are no doubt real cases from fold in a minute, others will forget around the world where it produced

5 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a hotere celebration hotere, avignon, and the year of the popes Vincent O’Sullivan

raham Greene liked to say to the Jean Baptiste Pompallier who he stayed doggedly elusive . He would that he was a Catholic and a first converted his forebears in the tell you when a work was done, about novelist, but not a ‘Catholic North Hokianga, did not prevent the people he saw at the time, about Gnovelist’ . Much as Ralph Hotere said, his seeing missionary zeal within a technical aspects of the work, where irritating some by saying it, that he framework of colonial enterprise, the metal came from, the problems of was a Māori and a painter, but not or his referring to the French cleric hanging it . But try drawing him on the ‘a Māori painter’ . With both, it was ‘and his henchmen’ . But the broad personal significance of his repetitive a way to evade being conscripted, to European context of Catholicism religious motifs, and he deftly veered out-manoeuvre being tagged with appealed to him, although appropri- off — “Because they look good” . the kind of hold-all label that most ately enough for one of Te Aupōuri writers and artists usually deplore . descent, an iwi famous for its legends avignon - palace of the popes Yet one does not look long at of evasion and camouflage, he was But to jump to that important year, Hotere’s prodigious output without cagey in speaking of it, or of much 1978 . Ralph had not been in Europe Catholic images and motifs assert- else that touched him deeply . “Tell for thirteen years, since the time ing themselves as intrinsic to what them nothing”, as he once said to he had lived in London, and then he does . Phrases in Latin, the Greek his collaborator Bill Culbert before in Vence . Now, with his wife Cilla abbreviation for Xristos, the heart sur- they were interviewed in Germany . McQueen and her daughter Andrea, mounted by a cross, and sometimes he settled for several months on the Ile by an anchor, that he took from the hotere revealesd de la Barthelasse, the long flat island gitane Church Les Saintes-Maries Ralph’s exaggerated reputation as between the banks of the Rhône, de-la-Mer in the Camargue, or the a recluse is in fact a misreading of with the ramparts of Avignon, that resonant numerals of the Stations of something else — his deep reluctance medieval ‘white city’ across a stretch the Cross that he finally tended to to talk about his art, or to being cor- of river . The Palais des Papes and draw on if nothing else occurred to nered into having to ‘declare’ himself . the handsome square in front of it him . An artist’s use of an image may He never spoke on the marae . He became a favourite place to visit . To be as much about instinctive aesthetic could comfortably sit with a friend live in France again enlivened him . choice, as a declared religious intent . for a long time and say nothing . He wrote to a friend, “I’ve managed But the depth of that instinct is still to And as he sometimes put it, if you to do a prodigious amount of work the point . It is part of what the man is, wanted to know what he is doing in here ”. His large Avignon canvases, and what went into shaping him . his paintings, then look at the paint- both brooding and luminous, at Ralph was not a sentimentalist . ings . Don’t expect chatter about them . times carried an image of three keys, The fact that his Maori baptismal Even when being interviewed for the a traditional emblem of the papacy, name, Hone Papita, was a tribute book he wanted written about him, and hints of the city’s architecture . “I

The Ile de la Barthelasse and the Avignon bridge (famous in the folk song ‘Sur le pont d’Avignon’). At the right of the photograph is the church of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer referred to in the article.

6 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 explain . It enriched his work, it was personally fulfilling, and that was that . When pressed on what these words and images might mean to him, “They’re a good design” was as far as he would go . Privacy, as ever, was a gateway few passed . But those months in Avignon stayed with Ralph and Cilla as a touch- stone for near-idyllic family life . As she later wrote of it in one of her poems, “These memories thread clarities/ that light our way back to each other, then, man, woman, child, all whole of heart ”. Then in late September, while the family stayed in Menorca with Ralph’s old golfing mate, the academic Sebastian Black, and his historian partner Judith Binney, the newly elected pope also died . This time his text was in Spanish, El Papa ha muerto, Juan Pablo I. The first phrase appeared against a truncated white-mottled cross (the effect was produced by a laden brush held above the surface and flicked through the artist’s fingers), the second on another strip of canvas attached beneath the first . But few works bear witness to Hotere’s ease with the breadth of his shared cultures than a painting also from this time that he gave to an Irish friend in London, who had worked as Photo: Tony Eyley, c .1971 a barman in the Kiwi during Ralph’s Auckland days as an art teacher . don’t know yet whether the paintings imaginatively at home . One canvas is Its words were both intensely are any good . I’ll bring them home deeply evocative . Beneath the French Catholic, and famously subversive — and look at them in a different light ”. headline, the ecclesiastical Greek let- Introibo ad altare Dei [I will go to the tering XP, and the dead Pope’s name, altar of God] written at the top, ‘yes year of the popes all set in white lettering against a black yes yes’ at the bottom — the begin- There was a curious historical reso- blunt-armed cross, he inscribed the ning and the end of James Joyce’s nance, Ralph thought, to be in this Maori words Ulysses. But how better to conclude other ‘City of the Popes’ when Paul He Hinga Atu Ana than with Ralph’s own warning on VI died at the beginning of August . He Tetekura reading into a painting, our demand- He followed the newspapers closely, He Ara Mai Ana ing as it were more from it than its and the attention events received from He Tetekura. immediate visual presence . “Make inside a Catholic culture fascinated They are lines that announce sure what you see was put there him . He began on Le Pape est Mort, a how one frond falls, another takes its by the artist, and not by you ”. For series taking its title from a newspaper place; that as one chief dies, another Hotere, there’s the painting, and that headline . The phrase was repeated in will come to replace him . He used the is what we should attend . The rest is several paintings which perhaps are same lines again on another canvas, silence, which of course may be the not to be read as conventional mourn- with the headline this time in Italian . very time to look . n ing, or a single voice descanting on a Cilla McQueen noted how easily, public theme, so much as a recharged how casually, Ralph assumed that his Vincent O’Sullivan is a fiction writer, focus going back to his childhood, to engagement with traditional belief poet, biographer and literary editor, practices and emblems where he was was not something he had any call to who lives in Dunedin.

7 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a hotere celebration

Hotere scrapbook - page 1

See the energy in the photo of the young Just before Ralph left London in May 1965, he put art teacher with a painting rolled up out on the lawn of his home the paintings that he under his arm. Taken in 1952.[Photo was sending back to New Zealand. This photo shows courtesy Vincent O’Sullivan] him in the middle surveying them. [Photo courtesy Vincent O’Sullivan]

Taken in the midst of ‘No 8, an installation’: most probably at Hamilton, 1992 creating “… a tangle of extraordinary proportions … it is a very beautiful material that has been wrapped around this country for many years.” (Graeme Speden, NZ Herald, 17 March 1992) [Photo courtesy Vincent O’Sullivan] 8 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a journey of protest through art Tony Eyre

ingatui, a small settlement on the Taieri Plains just south of Dunedin, has Wbeen a home of thoroughbred racing for over 100 years . I must admit, it has been my ‘spiritual home’ at times — I have enjoyed on a few occasions a part-owner’s thrill of cheering home my winning horse . Which explains why I was intrigued to come across the word ‘WINGATUI’ floating in a sea of text in one of Ralph Hotere’s many lithographs produced in 1992 . Curious to find out the significance to Ralph of this particular word associa- tion, I popped the question to him on one of my many visits to his Carey’s Bay home . (My own sleuthing in later years found it was a reference to a Bill Manhire poem of the same name) . Noted for his reluctance to explain his work, Ralph’s silent gaze to some fixed point beyond me indicated that no explanation would be forthcoming . But as soon as I shared my own Wingatui association with ‘the horses’ his eyes lit up and immediately there was a connec- tion, an articulation, a fond recollection of days at the races, a hot tip from the horse’s mouth or a romantic recall of an unfashionably bred champion that became a household name . Ralph Hotere (and his dog Piglet) enjoying a day at the races with Cor Oranje . It was this celebration of the ordi- nary that made Ralph Hotere so spe- Over the years I would visit him this was no fashionable dabble cial to his friends whether they were Ralph at his Carey’s Bay home into art of the politics — rather it the collaborating artist, the Carey’s and his various studios . Our paths became a journey of artistic expression Bay fisherman, the watersider from would also cross at the social gath- over more than 50 years . Port Chalmers, tradesmen like his old erings of artist friends . As account- mate, Cor Oranje or members of his ant to numerous Dunedin artists, I the 1960-70s local golf club . gradually became familiar with the His Polaris Series of the early 1960s was I first met Ralph Hotere in the large network of creative people a reference to the development of US 1990s when he approached me to be enjoying Hotere’s friendship, hos- Polaris nuclear warheads deployed on his accountant . This professional rela- pitality and generosity . submarines in the wake of the Cuban tionship and personal friendship would While I appreciate the sublime Missile Crisis in 1962 . That same year extend close to twenty years but my beauty of Ralph Hotere’s abstract he had a residency in Vence, France awareness of the work of this lionised work, it’s his large body of protest which inspired other major protest artist began in the 1970s when his images art — his outrage against environ- work of that decade – his Algérie and graced the covers of poetry collections by mental degradation, racism, milita- Human Rights Series, in response to James K . Baxter and Hone Tuwhare and rism and the futility of war — that has French colonialism and the war for short stories by O E. . Middleton . had the deepest resonance for me . For independence in Algeria .

9 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a hotere celebration

Whilst in France in 1962, he Bay in the Bay of Islands led Hotere – AORAKI is the Mountain WAITAKI visited Italy and the Sangro River to produce canvas works and a suite the RIVER — highlighting the envi- War Cemetery where his brother Jack of lithographs to commemorate this ronmental damage that would result is buried, killed in action in 1943, disgraceful episode in New Zealand’s from a proposal by Meridian Energy aged 22, when serving with the 28th long-time opposition to nuclear testing . to channel the flow of the South (Māori) Battalion . In response he In the 1980s and 1990s his art- Island’s Waitaki River for a hydro began his Sangro Paintings, a moving works reacted to events that were to electricity scheme . personal statement on his own grief threaten his own back yard . A proposed As to be expected after a serious and the futility and stupidity of war . A aluminium smelter on the fragile salt stroke, Ralph’s physical world imme- feature of these and his 1978 works on marshes near his beloved Aramoana diately shrank . Months of recuperation the same theme are the staccato stencil- is met by staunch resistance by the and rehabilitation, ongoing homecare ling of the word ‘Sangro’ and floating local community through the Save and, in later years, residency at the Little double numerals denoting the ages of Aramoana Campaign . Ralph plays Sisters of the Poor were factors in his soldiers killed in the battle to advance his part with subversive acts of public wider circle of friends no longer having across the Sangro River . Once, on a graffiti and an exhibition of corrugated the same access to him . I know this led visit to his Carey’s Bay villa, I shared iron works expressing his opposition to to much hurt and sadness, particularly with Ralph how his Sangro works were the smelter — Viva Aramoana! with some of his lifetime friends . In my favourite and his response was the fact, in the intervening years between silent welling up of tears . the 1990s Ralph’s stroke and his recent death, In the early 1990s I attended a party the ‘ownership’ of the Hotere persona the 1980s at Ralph’s Observation Point studio became a topic of private debate . For me, as for many others, the 1981 overlooking Port Chalmers . Looking On a more public front, the owner- Springbok Tour of New Zealand was very much like a gang headquarters ship of Hotere artworks became the a defining period in my life . On the from the outside, the interior of these subject of public scrutiny with court wall of my office hangs one of Ralph former dilapidated stables had been action in 2010 over the disputed title Hotere’s lithographs . It depicts a Union restored by Ralph from a mishmash of of a large private collection of his art- Jack with a circled ‘1981’ hovering sturdy timber, bricks, old church win- works up for auction . Also grabbing the above it and underneath, the rhetori- dows and carvings — like the inside headlines has been the stealing of one or cal question — ‘A Black Union Jack?’ of a Middle-earth Hobbiton dwelling . two ‘Hoteres’ — a rather brutal form of Often, in the busyness of my day, I But a shadow hung over its future ownership transfer . And with any signifi- pause and gaze at that framed Hotere with Port Otago’s plans to amputate cant artist, the exercise of copyright over image and muse on the unprecedented part of the headland to provide space artwork is always going to be a point of conflict that split our nation down the for storage of logs for export . tension between competing interests . middle — an ideological clash between Oputae, the Māori name for When Hotere died in February the racism of apartheid and the right to Observation Point, featured in Ralph’s 2013, aged 81, the country witnessed play a game of rugby . works depicting the ‘cut’ that was to a huge outpouring of tributes, per- Ralph’s opposition to the desecrate permanently this former sonal stories and anecdotes from his Springbok Tour expressed itself in Pa site and burial ground . Despite friends and associates who just knew his Black Union Jack works produced strong community opposition and him as ‘Ralph’ . In a sense, this was all before and after the tour . Other legal challenges the go-ahead was of us claiming a bit of the man that works like What’s in a Game and O granted to Port Otago to remove part we came to love so fondly . Africa incorporated poems by his of the historic headland and on the And now Ralph has gone home . good friend Hone Tuwhare . casualty list was the Hotere studio, His own Tangi at Mitimiti in the French nuclear testing in the demolished in 1993 . Hokianga of the Far North has Pacific in the mid 1980s became Even after his debilitating stroke brought him back to his birth place a target for Hotere’s protest in his in 2001, Ralph Hotere still wrung out to be claimed at last by Papatūānuku, extraordinary Mururoa canvas paint- images of protest . A 2003 lithograph his earth mother . ings, many featuring the perfectly is stamped with the red repetitive Haere ra ki te moenga roa o nga tupuna. inscribed circle — the No Ordinary stencilling ‘Keep NZ Out of Iraq’ that Go to your long bed of sleep, of those Sun of Hone Tuwhare’s poem of that emerges out of the threatening dark- who have gone before you . n title and phrases from Bill Manhire’s ness — a challenge to the New Zealand ubiquitous Pine poem . Government not to commit troops to Tony Eyre is a parishioner of Holy Name The French bombing of the the American invasion of Iraq . Parish, Dunedin and a former trustee of Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior in 1985 And possibly his last act of public the Hotere Foundation Trust. and its eventual scuttling at Matauri defiance — was a series of lithographs

10 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a farewell to ralph hotere

‘To lamp me through inscrutable dusk’ -Charles Brasch

Gregory O’Brien

alph Hotere’s old friend, Ian To lamp me through inscrutable dusk acknowledged and made peace with . Prior, once told me about a And down the catacombs of death. Ralph’s art also hints at how human- visit he had received from ity is upraised and enobled by In Ralph’s painting (which is theR artist not long after the death of death, and how we must learn — in now in the collection of Aratoi– their mutual friend, Charles Brasch, William Bronk’s words — “how Wairarapa Museum of Art and in 1973 . As editor of the literary despair and deepest sadness can and History), the dark, luxuriant music journal Landfall and an avid collec- must be phrased as praise, thanksgiv- of Brasch’s poem finds a perfect tor, Brasch had been a staunch sup- ing” . In an era when so much con- setting, inscribed alongside a tide- porter of Ralph’s art from the early temporary art was characterised by like seepage of earth-brown ink . 1960s onwards . On the afternoon bombast and ostentation, his work The work is imbued with the spirit in question, Ralph had dropped was often prayerful and solemn; it of both artist and poet, while also around to the home of Ian and his hinted at the spiritual yet remained memorialising the bond between wife Elespie (who was a cousin of utterly grounded in the physical, them . The way Ian described it, Brasch’s) . Looking out the front human world . the handing over of the painting window of their house, they both Colin McCahon, in his art, would was like the lifting of a weight off observed a visibly distraught Ralph often place a lamp in a room, shin- Ralph’s back, an unburdening . He lifting something from the boot of ing its ‘divine’ light onto the human was lighter on his feet as he went his car . After lingering a while on world beyond itself . In Hotere’s art, back down the path . the roadside, Ralph advanced across as in Manhire’s poetry, the human the lawn towards their front door . a lamp gone out body itself becomes the lamp — ‘let At the last moment, however, he was your throat be the lantern’, as the I found myself pondering Winter diverted, as if by some stray or unre- poet sings in ‘The Voyage’, inscribed anemones while flying home from solved thought . He paced back and on numerous of Ralph’s Song Cycle Ralph’s funeral in Dunedin on forth across the grass before, even- banners . The inference is that the February 28 . The work of art as a gift tually, going up the steps, ringing spiritual exists within humanity, given . Images and words . The body the bell and, when Ian and Elespie rather than being beamed down upon as a lamp . A lamp gone out . . For opened the door, handing them a it from above . (In the late 1990s I a man of few words, Ralph incorpo- framed watercolour painting, “a gift spent some months refining a related rated a great deal of language within in memory of Charles” . And then theory that Hotere’s art belonged his art . His works track the human he left . The painting, titled Winter to the mystical arm of the Catholic need for symbols, for language, for anemones, quotes in full Brasch’s Church whereas McCahon’s was meaning — hence all the ghostlike elegaic poem of the same title: firmly in the theological camp . The utterances, to light our way through end result was an essay in the 2000 The ruby and amethyst eyes of anemones Brasch’s ‘inscrutable dark’ . The works publication, Hotere: Black Light .) Glow through me, fiercer than stars. also register that moment when Flambeaux of earth, their dyes language fails us — when it dissolves resurrection into the mysterious darkness at the From age-lost generations burn Resurrection is another great theme heart of the human world . Black soil, branches and mosses into light of his art; also its equivalents in the For Ralph, art was a means That does not fail, though winter grip the natural world: regeneration, cycles by which the conundrum of rocks of day and night, the seasons, the human mortality could be, if not tides, the laying down and the To adamant. See, they come now exactly resolved, then somehow

11 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a hotere celebration getting back up of everything . One might reach the conclusion, via Teilhard de Chardin, that it is through the Resurrection that the Christian faith is married to, and becomes indistinguishable from, Nature, rather than is made dis- tinct from it . While it was the death of a single friend, Anthony Watson, which precipitated Ralph’s 1974 Requiem series, ultimately his works are powerful because they transcend the personal . Art can indeed be an appro- priate goodbye, a gesture — witness the delivery to the Priors’ front door — yet mourning and grief reach out to encompass all of human- ity . Which is why Ralph’s Requiem paintings are so eloquent — they enter that collective mystery, they go very wide indeed . And they don’t feel they have to say anything, as such . To say something is often to put limits on a subject, to rationalise, quantify or qualify it . Instead, his art strikes a dark, resonant chord — much like music, a lyrical poem or a prayer in Latin — or else it is silent . And it is this silence that renders us — the onlookers — silent too, as we stand before the reflective, encompassing darknesses of these works . Photo: Marti Friedlander catholic faith Paul I . In my original text I had sug- I had included his parents, Ana Of Ralph’s deep and nuanced rela- gested that The Pope is Dead works, Maria and Tangirau Hotere, in the tionship with Catholicism, I remem- with their graffitti-like scrawlings narrative . (Works in their memory ber one telling moment shortly after and overwriting, might have alluded were also included in the exhibi- I had finished writing my book about to a possible loss of religious faith . tion that accompanied the book .) his collaborations with New Zealand He told me, unequivocably, that this The absolute respect and love he poets, Hotere – out the black window, was not the case . The series, he went held for his late parents — who back in 1996 . When Ralph read my on to say, had been his expression of had passed on to him a deep sense completed manuscript, he made only ‘solidarity’ with the grieving Catholic of both Catholic and Maori tradi- two suggestions: the first was that his communities of Southern Europe, tions — was something that, even full name should be put on record: as it had been with the Maori com- in his late 60s, continued to reside Hone Papita Hotere . (He had been munities of Northland (Ralph’s can- at the core of his being . n named John the Baptist in honour vases incorporated lines in French, of Bishop Pompallier .) He also asked Spanish, French and Maori, as well that I amend a speculative remark as Latin) . Gregory O’Brien is a Wellington I had made regarding his series The There is one further thing I artist and writer. Pope is Dead, which he had painted in remember from that time when, Southern Europe during 1978 — a having nervously handed over my year marked by the death of Pope manuscript, I finally received Ralph’s Paul VI and then his successor John response: his immense gratitude that

12 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 Hotere scrapbook - page 2 Another bevel on the Hotere diamond was his love of sport . . .

Ralph’s teacher training in Dunedin in 1952 gave him opportunity to exercise his skill as pitcher and captain of the Dunedin Teachers’ College softball team (front row, far left). Note his elegant sports rig, and the ‘roll-your-own’ in hand – very “louche”. [Photo courtesy Vincent O’Sullivan]

Ralph’s happiness at being on the Auckland Ralph caddying for Ben Gallie at the St Clair Golf harbour during the 2000 America’s Cup Club. Many enjoyed Ralph’s company at golf. [1996, challenges is self-evident. [Photo courtesy photo courtesy Otago Daily Times] Vincent O’Sullivan]

13 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a hotere celebration after the funeral

The writer reflects on events surrounding the funeral day of his friend and colleague, Ralph Hotere, and the ways this was caught up into the ordinary threads of life.

Gregory O’Brien

he conclusion of Ralph swiftly opened . From that point us thinking about the anonymity of Hotere’s funeral, for all onwards, everything slowed down . death, and how it is that mourning intents and purposes, A medic, who had rushed out from engulfs all of humanity . Media vita markedT an intermission in, rather the terminal with a respirator, went in morte sumus. This was something than a resolution of, the processes of slowly back across the tarmac, less Ralph Hotere had reflected upon mourning and remembrance which than a minute later . The ambu- in his art and that a planeload of had overtaken the lives of friends lance backed in to the rear of the strangers had just had some inkling and family following his death . plane . No one onboard so much of — all of us perturbed yet some- Ralph’s coffin was driven off over the as looked around . Everyone was how humbled by the experience, rise — beneath a pristine Dunedin silent . Such was the solemnity, it and drawn together by it . “In the sky — to reappear on the television was as if our seats — 2A and 2B midst of life, we are in death ”. In news the following night, arriving — had become pews in a chapel . my mind, the tears of the airhost- by helicopter at Mitimiti . Some When we took off again, we looked esses have become an integral part made the journey north with his earthwards from our window and of the emotional outpouring which body; others resumed their ordinary saw the ambulance parked beside surrounded Ralph’s passing . or not-quite-so-ordinary lives . the airport building with a couple of figures waiting outside . We the image of the setting sun another death noticed that the second airhostess, There is one further detail from the Flying back to Wellington after seated at the rear of the aeroplane, flight north which remains with Ralph’s funeral, my wife Jen and I had also been crying . me . High above the Canterbury were 45 minutes north of Dunedin The incident on the aeroplane set Plains for a second time, two hours when the pilot came over the loud- speaker, asking if there was anyone on board with medical training . A few minutes later, he announced that, ‘for medical reasons’ we would be returning to Dunedin . The little aeroplane spun dramati- cally around and then accelerated south . In the meantime, our air hostess had strapped herself back into her seat, facing Jen and me . The young woman was crying . Jen passed her a handkerchief . No one said a word . Upon landing, the plane went full-tilt up to one end of the termi- nal, where an ambulance was wait- Dolphins in Wellington Harbour ing . The back door of the plane was

14 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 behind schedule and with the remembered seeing the blowtorch rare visit to Wellington harbour sun just going down behind the in Ralph’s studio and how he would that afternoon . It had been a Southern Alps and the light fading, use it to burn words and shapes — perfect day in the Capital — sun- my eye was caught by a number of often crucifixes — into sheet metal . drenched, windless — at the tail- scrub-fires which had been ignited His great work Black Phoenix, made end of the most perfect summer not far from a settlement . Smoke from the prow of a burnt fishing anyone could remember . On the was blowing southwards from these boat, was another work with fire television news later that night, seams of blazing red and orange . I — real fire — at its core . Again, I Ralph’s funeral was followed by thought of Teilhard de Chardin’s was confronted by the miraculous footage of these creatures leaping Mass on the World —the transforma- correspondence Ralph was able to and playing, close by the shore, tive fire of the Eucharist/sun and, make between the physical world and the beaming, euphoric faces beneath it, the human-made burn- and that of the spirit . of those watching them . This off . The flames looked like scars, event — another gift of sorts — or underlinings, left upon a page rare visit of dolphins has also become part of our record by a faulty red pen . This brought We understand but a small fraction of Ralph’s farewell . The world to mind another of Ralph’s works of a human life, but we feel every can, at times, be an otherworldly which I had seen in Ian Prior’s smallest particle of it, and live place — with its coincidences and house: an untitled abstract paint- every millisecond of it . Someone its correspondences, with its cycles ing (circa 1970) which included famous is farewelled; someone else of burning back and regrowth, its a cross motif and a circular form, slips away in the company only annihilating and its transformative rendered by the exact same lines of strangers, fellow passengers . fires, the cold facts of life and all — fiery and intermittently broken The world has its rituals and its we have to compensate, human — which now passed beneath us . happenstance . But the 28th of warmth, a lamp . n I also thought of Ralph’s Dawn/ February was not quite over yet . Water paintings (his protest against Upon landing in Wellington, we Gregory O’Brien is a Wellington artist French nuclear testing) with their were told that a pod of over 100 and writer. incendiary reds and yellows; and I bottlenose dolphins had made a

Photo: Tony Eyley, c . 1971

15 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 16 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 Poem Beginning with a Line by Ralph Hotere

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. Our eyes do dark adaptation. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. Our eyes do dark adaptation. The traveller sings. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. Our eyes do dark adaptation. The traveller sings. The dancer departs. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. Our eyes do dark adaptation. The traveller sings. The dancer departs. The world takes shape, but will not stay. The light is on at Careys Bay.

The wind is blowing the year away. The painter is holding a lamp. Light fills the canvas, day after day. Our eyes do dark adaptation. The world takes shape, but will not stay. The traveller sings. The dancer departs. The wind is blowing the year away. The light is on at Careys Bay.

— Bill Manhire Victims of Lightning (Victoria University Press, 2010)

17 Tui Motu InterIslands

Photo: Marti Friedlander June 2013 spirituality fire in the depths of the earth

Pentecost reminds us that the Holy Spirit is a power at work in a continually renewed universe, and is present in the innermost mystery of all things. Grace and science come together to offer a fuller picture of what is true: that God’s love is embodied in all humanity, and in the evolving world itself. Daniel O’Leary

reakthrough into new vistas ask, why then are we so sinful, so If all of this is true — that the is an essential dimension destructive, so evil? Theologians reply essential face of Creation, as we of Pentecost . This Sunday’s that the act of Creation in the very have it, has always carried the tender BCollect implores God to “fill now first place — involving time, space look of love rather than the sinister once more the hearts of believers”, and free will — carries with it the shape of sin — then other intrinsi- encouraging us to expand our hori- need for redemption . Salvation is cally connected issues to do with the zons . Pentecost, for theologian Karl implicit in Creation itself . vibrancy of faith will need careful Rahner, is a vital “hour of courageous To be human is to be wounded revision and development . vision” in the history of the Church, from the start, to be in need of Here is one topical example . when the Holy Spirit weaves new pat- completion . Love is what completes People sense that we’re at a very terns out of the “interrelated-ness of us . “We were already saved”, writes significant threshold in history where Creation and Incarnation” . A central Richard Rohr OFM, “by the gaze two pivotal stories meet — the love path, for him, towards that expan- from the manger ”. The terrible story revealed in the orthodox theol- sion of the restless heart’s horizon, death on the Cross is not about an ogy of nature and grace, and the concerns the currently popular ques- atonement demanded by a punitive amazing story revealed in the scien- tion about the divine intention for Father for one early original sin of tific explorations of a painfully evolv- the Incarnation — did Jesus come to disobedience; it reveals, rather, the ing and utterly wonderful world . atone for the sin of Adam and Eve, or astonishing love of God for a broken These stories do not have to col- would he have come anyway? humanity, healing it and charting its lide with each other: rather do they Beyond doctrinal debate, this is course towards its blessed destiny . embrace each other, offering a fuller a crucial question with implications An orthodox theology of picture of what is beautiful and true . for every aspect of our lives, personal Creation holds that God, right from They both speak of a fundamental and universal . Is there a theology, the beginning, desired to become connectedness in our origins, evo- people ask, other than one based on human simply because, as St Thomas lution and destiny . The emerging a fall/redemption supposition, that Aquinas put it, his infinite love cosmology, often called the New tells a different story — a story of needed to express itself outside itself Universe Story, can be seen as validat- original grace and beauty rather than (bonum est diffusivum sui) — first ing the rich theological (but mostly of original sin? in Creation, then finally and fully neglected) vision which has always By way of reply, theologians point revealed in Incarnation . And by been at the heart of true Christianity . to two schools of theology that are virtue of solidarity and derivation, A new consciousness of the bigger central to our present reflection . this love is embodied to a greater or picture is called for, a clearer insight One is the familiar sin/ redemp- lesser degree, in all of us and in the into the intrinsic connection between tion model with its basic themes of evolving world itself . Creation and Incarnation, into the reparation and sacrifice . The other is Being human does not mean being deepening conversation between the called a theology of nature and grace . banished, fallen, cursed — a massa mystic and the physicist . A funda- Creation, our earth, our bodies, our damnata as St Augustine put it — as mental concept is that we all flow death, all we mean by the ‘natural’, if God’s original dream for us was, from one source; some will call it the ‘the secular’, are not the unfortunate at some stage, radically destroyed . process of evolution, others the work results of what Blessed John Henry Terrible things happen when mythi- of the Holy Spirit . Newman called “some terrible abo- cal truth is confused with historical In Field of Compassion, Judy riginal calamity” . On the contrary, truth . Paradise was not lost in the past; Cannato writes, “There is a single they are all already graced, and care- Adam and Eve never existed on this Creator of the entire cosmos, a fully fashioned in the divine image . planet; the Creator’s original blueprint Creator who remains present to But if there was no Fall, people was never destroyed by an actual ‘fall’ . every part of the cosmos, sustaining

18 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 and empowering its ongoing life and Wisdom, Understanding, development . This same Creator will bring the whole movement of evolu- Counsel, Wellington Harbour tionary Creation to completion ”. The original divine design in our evolving world is revealed in Incarnation, to be fulfilled in the Omega of Revelation . A cable clinking against the mast collides Evolution, you could say, is like a conscience against my jangled thoughts. intrinsic to Incarnation . It is how Creation, already containing the divine seed, has prepared the neces- Serpent-like, multicoloured ropes coil around my feet sary ground — the human era — for the birthing of God . There is a sense and seem to tighten the knots already binding me. in which Creation is the beginning of Incarnation, “the first Bible”, as Aquinas put it . Gulls squawk accusingly as the engine putters Pentecost reminds us that God’s through the emptiness of the evening. fire already burns in the darkest depths of the living earth . Ultimately, for the Christian, the Holy Spirit is Leaning back I see the cross-bar present as the innermost mystery of all things, and may be understood silhouetted against the sky, white on blue. as the invisible power at work in a continually evolving universe, until God be “all in all” . There is now no A tentative breeze puffs life into the sail, longer a destructive dualism between you cut the motor and all there is the things of God and the things of earth . “When we want both the God of infinity and the spirit within the is warmth and clear distance, familiar (evolving) universe, as it is, and as it shall become, there is one breath of wind, bright light, silent strength, path to both,” writes Rahner . The recovery of a theology of nature and grace, now enriched by the the Spirit’s gifts revealed. emerging insights of the new cosmol- ogy, will have profound implications for many Christian teachings, for our Fading sunlight feathers the water across the quiet understanding of sacrament, for pas- harbour. toral ministry, for the religion/science debate and for a new evangelising of young and old . It will help, above all, A stillness, caressed by gentle waves, releases me. to shift our self-image as fallen fail- ures, complicit somehow in the death of Jesus, to an awareness of our role as -Helen Sligo vital co-creators with God of a steadily developing, ever-evolving universe . We are not guilty exiles on a fallen earth — we are the beloved bearers of her divine dream . n

Fr Daniel O’Leary’s website is www. djoleary.com This article is reprinted by kind permission of The London Tablet www.thetablet.co.uk

19 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 sprituality

rhapsody in blue ... and other tones: letter from gizo

What do God’s sure reconciliation, hope and harmony bring to our poor unbalanced lives? Fr Peter looks more deeply into the infinite love of our God.

Peter Murnane

n Sundays I sometimes for anyone who wants to receive the clerics seem bent on restoring it, but journey 22 kilometres by Sacrament of Reconciliation . While for what motives? Do they want to outboard-motor canoe I am hearing confessions, people lead people to God’s infinite love, or Ofrom Gizo to Kolombangara, to cel- stream through the front doors, retain power over them? ebrate Mass for the people of Vanga from the glaring sunlight into this One Sunday, after eight or ten Point’s Rural Training Centre, slightly cooler space of tiled floor people had knelt in succession at the Teachers’ College and schools . and high, varnished ceiling-beams . other side of the grille, I noticed a Returning home recently about Parents enter, trying to quieten their middle-aged man standing a couple noon, on a calm sea, I marvelled energetic children; wrinkled grand- of metres away, looking towards the how the tropical sunshine lit the mothers walk in slowly; beautiful, far end of the church as if searching ocean and surrounding islands in shy teenage girls; boys showing off; for someone . I suspected that he wonderful blue light . mothers breast-feeding; the glowing wanted to come to confession, but The islands gave the impression brown of Micronesian skin and the was embarrassed to be seen doing so . that we were in an inland sea . Some glossy, blue-black of Melanesian . After hesitating for a while he made of them, more than 50 kilometres One by one a few persons from a kind of quick, sidewise dive in my off, had that ghostly blue of distant every category come to kneel and direction like one trying to catch a mountains, but the wide plains speak through the wooden trellis, chook in a fowl-pen . As he landed on between us were waters about 500 their soft voices hard to hear against the kneeler, I welcomed him with the metres deep, in surprising blues the lusty choir practice up near the usual prayer and began to hear bits of between navy and royal . In the gaps altar . Nor is it easy to link together his story, in Pijin, enough to indicate between islands, this blue went on, the phrases of their Pijin . If they use serious difficulties in his marriage and with subtle variations, to a straight- their First Language I am completely family life . But before the fragments ruled horizon of open ocean . A disa- lost . Sitting there in long Dominican began to take shape, a great crash of bled boat might drift through those habit with a heavy stole I can forget sound overwhelmed us . . the four blues, across the Equator and for the sweat dripping off me, for as if big bells hanging just outside the thousands of kilometres northwards through a briefly-opened door I front door began announcing that to the icy blues of the Arctic . glimpse into lives of struggle: old Mass was soon to begin . The nearer islands offered a or young struggling in poverty and My penitent continued until range of subtly different blues, the close intimacy of the extended he had finished his story, probably depending on whether you chose family, which is both a blessing and relieved that the only one who could to focus on their nearer or further a burden . This ancient sacramental hear it now was God . In my loudest mountain ranges, but as we came ritual awes me, which lets us admit whisper, against the din of bells I closer to our home islands the blue our most painful concerns to another said a few words of encouragement, slowly solidified into the dark green human being and be reassured yet then the prayer of absolution . Even of forested hills . again that the Infinite Love that the though I did not get ‘all the facts’, gospel shows us, will understand and and despite what some rigorist canon s s s s s s s forgive us, no matter what . lawyers might say, I am sure he On Sundays when I am not cross- The older view of confession as received the full benefit of meeting ing to Vanga Point I am often in a fearsome judgment-seat where God in the sacrament . Without any Gizo cathedral . For half an hour we come to scrape out the barrel of discussion of his situation, he walked before Mass begins, I sit in a corner our conscience and be rebuked and away a little more aware that our just inside the front door, behind a punished, has faded out, justifiably deepest human difficulties don’t put kneeler with a wooden grille, waiting parodied in Catholic jokes . Some us outside the reach of that Infinite

20 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 Love from which flow all the tones endured being ill and seriously over- assassinate in the name of “national of sound and colour that give us such weight, her body’s beauty distorted . security” . But was there ever a person delight . Surely that Love will in the Towards the end she suffered from who has not done some real good? end bring all things into harmony . diabetes that led to gangrene . I began Are there grounds for hope here? I to rejoice that she would be enjoy- hold firmly to the Catholic tradition s s s s s s s ing — I have come to believe — an that there is an opportunity after About the same time we buried the astonishing, wonderful encounter . death, in the presence of Infinite body of our Dominican sister Rosa, A person who prays the power- Love, somehow to “clean up” the in the little jungle cemetery here ful lines of St Patrick’s Breastplate woeful parts of our lives . on Loga . The Melanesian customs binds to themself like body-armour If, like me, you were taught around funerals are similar to those the realities of God, creation and that it is not quite decent to accept of the Māori and, I suppose, most community . One line has the beauti- thanks and praise — it might make indigenous peoples . We had about ful phrase “the sweet ‘well-done’ at us vain or (God forbid!) proud — three days of vigils, storytelling, judgment hour”, expressing our faith then the thought that the Infinite prayers . The grave must not be dug that our often-wretched, spotty lives might say ‘well done’ is a rather until the day of burial, then filled in will be brought before the Being of lovely note to restore harmony to while all are present . Finally there Light, origin of all the world’s lovely our poor unbalanced lives . n is a feast . sights and sounds . And that Being As the women wailed around will thank us! Rosa’s open coffin; as we carried her All of us do some bad things, and Peter Murnane is the novice master of the body into the chapel and later up the some people do a great many horrible Dominican friars at Loga, Gizo in the bush track, then lowered it into the things to others . But even when we Solomon Islands. red clay, I wondered what her mind/ do evil we try to justify it with some spirit/consciousness might be experi- warped, selfish view that it is for a encing now . For a long time Rosa had good cause . Daily we torture and

21 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 voluntary priestly celibacy a call for change

The situation within the Diocese of Dunedin is a microcosm of the shortage of priests in the Western world: with falling numbers of priests, and laity encouraged to perform many of the ministries till now reserved for priests. Is there another way? What about returning to the situation of the early church, where the priests and bishops were ordinary men, married and unmarried? In short, the writer calls for priestly celibacy to be made voluntary. David More

he Dunedin Hill Suburbs the Mass . It is worthy of note that and this included a number who Pastoral Area comprises the the Church permits married men were subsequently elected Pope . The three parishes of St Francis and women to perform marriage and actual number of married Popes is TXavier Mornington, St Joseph’s funeral services; conduct liturgy of the uncertain . All were married before Brockville, and St Mary’s Kaikorai, a Word with Holy Communion; under- ordination . In many cases their relatively large area of Dunedin City . take parish visiting, and other priestly children entered religious life or were It is served by one Priest only, Father functions; but continues to refuse ordained priests . Pope Hormisdas Cipriano Fernandez, an Indian on loan ordination to all but single men . (514–523) was the father of Pope St from the Archdiocese of Goa . Not so I have not heard our New Zealand Silverius (536–537) . many years ago, St Francis Xavier and Bishops publicly calling for an exami- From the fourth century, the St Mary’s parishes each had two priests nation of the criteria for ordination . I Church discouraged priests from and St Joseph’s had its own Capuchin understand they did raise it privately marrying . From a material perspec- Friary, comprising two priests and a with Pope John Paul II . On their tive, priests were personally accumu- number of lay brothers . watch the number of seminarians has lating wealth and possessions, and I have no doubt that similar situa- fallen below replacement, but is any- leaving these to their families rather tions can be found in other dioceses . thing being done? We are exhorted than the Church . Initially priests were In Otago and Southland the priestly to pray for vocations . I do not doubt not forbidden to marry . The Church’s shortage is not assisted by the fact the efficacy of prayer, but in the 21st prescriptions were much more subtle . that there are presently few seminar- century is the Church best served by There was a growing expectation that ians studying for ordination for the limiting the priesthood to unmarried priests would celebrate mass on days Dunedin diocese . A just released stra- men? Is the apparent lack of response additional to the Sunday mass . At tegic plan for the diocese predicts that to our prayers a sign that the answer the Council of Elvira in 386 it was it will have a total of only 15 priests by lies elsewhere? I suggest it is time for decreed that a priest was not to sleep 2025 . Whether we like it or not, New the Catholic Church in New Zealand with his wife the night before saying Zealand celibate males who aspire to (both clergy and laity) to discuss mass . It was not until the first Lateran priestly life are thin on the ground . publicly the return to ordaining mar- Council in 1123 that priests were not What is the solution? For the ried clergy . I say return, because for permitted to marry . Married priests Dunedin Diocese it appears to be to the early centuries of the Church’s were therefore permitted for over half accept that the number of priests will existence many of her priests were of the Church’s existence . continue to decline, and plan accord- married . There is no doubt that St In 1967 Pope Paul VI re-exam- ingly . The strategic plan calls for a Peter was married, and the likelihood ined, and upheld, priestly celibacy in reduction of areas where priests will is that so were the majority of the his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus . be based, and the closing of churches Apostles . In Paul’s first letter to the He acknowledged that celibacy was where Mass is currently celebrated . Corinthians he wrote, “Don’t I have not required by the nature of the Nowhere is there any suggestion that the right to follow the example of the priesthood itself . However, he did we should look at extending the crite- other apostles and the Lord’s brothers emphasise the importance of celibacy ria for ordination to the priesthood . and Peter by taking a Christian wife as being particularly suited to God’s The laity are being encouraged to with me on my trips?” (1 Co 9:4–5) ministers . He placed great emphasis take a greater part in the liturgy, but Married men were ordained on the example of Christ, who this does not include celebration of priests for several hundred years, “remained throughout His whole life

22 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 in the state of celibacy, which signi- and a step on the way to women conscience to argue the case to Pope fied his total dedication to the service participating more fully in the Francis . Vatican II emphasised the of God and men ”. Church’s ministry . role of bishops as successors to the In saying priestly celibacy was fol- • With married priests, any cover apostles and shepherds of the Church . lowing Christ’s example, then, with up of the abuse of children by Bishops are subject to the authority the greatest of respect, Paul VI was priests and religious will cease . A of the Pope, but obedience does not not comparing apples with apples . married man who has fathered prohibit debate and disagreement . Christ was personally celibate, but he children will not remain mute, It is not disobedient to say, “I think chose his apostles, the first priests and and condone the protection of the you are wrong, but nevertheless I will bishops, from ordinary men, married priests who have offended in this obey you ”. Under Pope John Paul and unmarried . That was his example way . II, bishops from several countries to his Church . I suggest it is time the So, where to from here? We could were far too ready to acquiesce in the Church followed it . train married men for the priesthood, Pontiff’s refusal to discuss the ques- Whilst Paul VI listed the major arrange with the Anglican Church tion of married priests . objections to mandatory priestly to have them ordained as Anglican I do not know what Pope Francis’ celibacy he did not attempt to priests, and then accept them back views on priestly celibacy are . South answer them . These objections are, as married Catholic priests . This is, America has over 40 percent of the in his order . of course, a facetious suggestion, but world’s Catholics . Anecdotal evi- • It is not required by the New the sad reality is that it would work . dence, including documents released Testament . Married Anglican priests are cur- by Wikileaks, is that many of her • It is not right to exclude from the rently the only married men accepted priests do not observe celibacy, and priesthood those who have been for ordination as Catholic priests in the Vatican is concerned . Perhaps this called to the ministry but are not the Roman rite . If an Anglican who time a call for priestly celibacy to be called to a celibate life . has a vocation to the priesthood, but voluntary will not fall on deaf ears . n • It will relieve the shortage of not a vocation to celibacy, may be priests . ordained a Catholic priest, why not David More is a Dunedin barrister . • It will remove the occasions for a Catholic? infidelity and defections, and Let us, as a Catholic community, enable Christ’s ministers to wit- discuss the issue . If there is consensus ness more fully to Christian living for the ordination of married men, by including the witness of mar- then our bishops are obliged in ried life . • Priestly celibacy is detrimental to the development of a mature and treaty settlements – celebrating tuhoe! well balanced human personality . Priests often become hard and . . . continued from page 31 lacking in human warmth . I would add the following . has stubbornly ignored and deval- Every New Zealander has the • Married priests will bring more ued the Indigenous experience . opportunity to be part of this humanity to the Church . Christ’s In our generation we are collec- remarkable process . Teilhard de message of love and forgiveness tively creating a space in the politi- Chardin calls it the creative art of will not change, but the emphasis cal landscape for a Māori historical imagining a better future — and will . Not enough priests under- story to emerge to avoid perpetuat- making it happen . n stand the issues that face married ing the settler story which enabled couples and families, and are out Pākehā culture to dominate the of touch . The Gospel message will political and cultural landscape . be presented with more relevance One of the difficulties is that Robert Consedine is the co-author (with especially to young people, and while the relationship between his daughter Joanna) of ‘Healing Our hopefully the exodus of Catholics the Crown and Māori continues History – The Challenge of the Treaty from the practice of their faith will to be healed, many Pākehā choose of Waitangi’ Penguin, 3rd edition be arrested . to remain resentful spectators on 2012. www.waitangi.co.nz • It will be a start in ending the the sideline . Māori patience is perception of women as lesser astonishing . beings in the life of the Church,

23 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 mission and evangelisation

hope for new evangelisation

‘New Evangelisation’ has been a strong theme of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI over a period of 30 years. A Mission sister looks at what this means in a broader and local sense. Susan Smith

urely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it”(Gen “ 28:16) . Jacob’s words indicating Sthat we are not always aware of God’s presence in a particular time or at a particular place gained a significance for me recently . At the end of April I was fortunate enough to attend the annual SEDOS Conference in Nemi, Italy . This year it was concerned with understanding what the papal teaching on New Evangelisation required of religious women and men . SEDOS (Service of Documentation and Study) began during Vatican II when superiors general of men’s mis- sionary congregations began to meet in informal conversation with religious — laity and priests — enthusiastically informally in Rome to share on what from Poland and parts of Asia, that embraced the changes the Council mission might mean in the light of vocations to women’s congregations called for, while a smaller number conciliar teachings . Today it is a forum are falling quite dramatically in some of Catholics felt that much that was open to religious missionary congre- places as is Mass attendance in large important had been lost . However, gations committed to deepening their cities . Our concerns today look set to in the latter years of John Paul II’s understanding of mission . become their concerns tomorrow . pontificate, and during Benedict’s Over the last three decades or time as pope the former “losers” were so Pope John Paul II, followed by response to new situations heartened by the restorationist policies Benedict XVI, had expressed con- The religious gathered at Nemi were of both . To some extent it could be cern about what Benedict described not the first group to have undertaken argued that Benedict understood that as “abandonment of the faith — a such a task as in October 2012 bishops the way to the future was to reclaim phenomenon progressively more from around the world, including and affirm the past . manifest in societies and cultures Archbishop John Dew and Bishop There are examples that demon- which for centuries seemed to be Charles Drennan, met in the Synod on strate this, and one of the more obvi- permeated by the gospel . . there has New Evangelisation to discuss how their ous is the recent language changes been a troubling loss of the sense of local churches could respond to the new in our Eucharistic liturgies while the sacred ”. (Ubicumque et Semper, situations in which they find them- another was Benedict’s attempts to 2010) . So the SEDOS conference was selves . In New Zealand, it is obvious heal the rift with the traditionalist concerned with why this was happen- that our Sunday Mass demographics are Society of St Pius X (SSPX), who ing in the Western world and what the changing fairly rapidly, and the signifi- despite papal overtures resolutely Church’s response should be . Speakers cant numbers of Asian and Polynesian refuse to accept Vatican II . from Australia, New Zealand, North Sunday worshippers can mask the real- The SEDOS participants agreed America and Western Europe were ity of a diminishing and ageing Pakeha that affirmation of Tradition was asked to speak about church realities congregation, and the almost complete important but knew that something in their countries, and what was being absence of Pakeha youth . else was needed and they were hope- done and what could be done to I sometimes think that the first ben- ful that this would happen . Much address issues of declining numbers, eficiaries of Vatican II were Catholics of their hope was generated by the particularly among youth . I also learnt of a liberal persuasion, all of whom arrival of Pope Francis . There is

24 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 no doubt that Francis’ attempts to comments on what new evangelisation is proving so effective an evangeliser . divest the papacy of practices that requires of the church suggests that the His actions speak loudly to contem- have little to do with gospel values current decline in numbers is basically porary society . But some of his words have touched the hearts of millions a catechetical problem . too are interesting as his comments and not only Catholics . I understood Thus The London Tablet reported on the Vatican Bank at a Mass for this only too well when a group of us Cardinal George Pell as saying that Vatican employees on 25 April indi- went into St . Peter’s for the Sunday English-speaking bishops had not cated (http://www.reuters.com) . So far Angelus . We arrived at the Piazza been vigorous enough in speaking Francis’ attitude is not characterised at 10 .30 and realised that to see the out on church teaching . The cardinal by defensiveness and caution toward Pope was mission impossible . The went on to argue that “a ‘cut-price’ the world . He does not deny that it is crowds were reminiscent of the TV Christianity won’t produce growth a messy and somewhat dysfunctional footage covering the opening of the and those Christian communities world but we must engage with it . Rugby World Cup on the Auckland that had accommodated with the waterfront in 2011 . Apparently more world were ‘going out of business’” a postitive critical approach than two or three hundred thousand (The London Tablet, 29 Oct, 12) . This helps explain why SEDOS partici- are there for the Sunday Angelus and On the other hand, Australian pants spoke of the need for a positive the Wednesday audiences . Columban, Noel Connolly, stated but critical attitude towards the world . that our task today as evangelisers We were reminded more than once of image of volcanic rocks is not to pump religion into people, the words of Jacob: “Surely The Lord One image has stayed with me from but draw it out . In order to do is in this place, and I did not know it” the conference . Italian Comboni that we need not only to know the (Gen 28:16) . God is present in our priest, Guilio Albanese turned to geol- mystery and hunger for God in our secular society and we need to keep on ogy to explain what was happening own hearts, but also to respect that searching . We were reminded too that in the church . Geology teaches that mystery and hunger in the hearts of the English title for Gaudium et Spes there are three major types of rock others . People are searching for spir- is “The church in the modern world” . formation — volcanic, sedimentary, itual meaning in their lives and sadly Our church is in the world, not above, metamorphic . Volcanic rocks explode growing numbers no longer find it in not apart from it . We were reminded and lead to changes in the landscape . the institutional church . that John Paul II taught that the Spirit Sedimentary rocks on the other hand is present in all times and cultures are old stones on which others rest . turning to evangelii nuntiandi (Redemptoris Missio #28) . Vatican II These serve as a metaphor for dogmatic Pell’s comments also expressed another had persuaded many Catholics to let teachings and sacred truths that are concern that pre-occupied Benedict go of an earlier fortress mentality and foundational for Catholicism . Finally and that is the presumed dangers that accept that the joys and sorrows of there are metaphoric stones that as secular society poses for the church . humankind are the joys and sorrows of their name suggests metamorphose While none of us would deny that the church . However, in recent years, into either volcanic or sedimentary secularism and consumerism do have extra-ecclesial realities — secularism, rocks depending on what is happen- a negative impact on the life of the consumerism, individualism, moral ing around them . We need all three faithful, this position can also make relativism — have been identified as but Albanese suggested that sedimen- it easier for the institutional church more damaging than intra-ecclesial tary rocks might soon be experiencing to refrain from a close examination realities such as gender, cultural and a few seismic shifts as volcanic rocks of its own life and practices . Paul VI sexuality issues . This can encourage a begin exploding and changing our taught in Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) negative attitude towards the world . ecclesial landscape . that the church has a continual need I went to the SEDOS conference The different speakers emphasised to be evangelised . The church not in a questioning mood and returned that any transformative change in the only evangelises through what is a much more hopeful person . God church much be grounded in believers’ proclaimed, but also through its way is present in our transitional cul- deep, personal relationships with Jesus of living, of organising, of exercising ture and along with other people Christ . Synodal documentation dem- authority, of using its human and of good will we need to search for onstrates that the bishops at last year’s economic resources, of valuing from God who is in this place although Synod on New Evangelisation recog- within the different charisma and we do not know it . n nised this as key . But SEDOS speakers ministries, of establishing relations, of went on to say that few bishops spoke judging culture and entering into dia- Susan Smith is a member of the of the need for institutional transfor- logue with today’s men and women, Congregation of Our Lady of the mation of the Church . A reading of of feeling like a church in the contem- Missions (RNDM) who lives and works official documentation or bishops’ porary world . And this is why Francis in Whangarei.

25 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 scripture the widow of nain Luke 7:11-17 – Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Kathleen Rushton

ften I hear people say that they have a tune at me as she sat crying on a pile of rubble in Lingguan that they cannot get out of their head . It township in Baoxing County, China . Now presumably is not tunes for me but images . Lingering a widow, her relatives, and maybe her only son, had Oimages are part of my Mercy DNA . Catherine been killed in the previous Saturday’s earthquake . Her McAuley spoke often of such images as being ever image remains and disturbs me often . Who is she? before her . Of young women whom she could not Where is she now? How is she? Who is there for her? admit to the House of Mercy because of widespread unemployment and homelessness in Dublin, she a nameless silent widow wrote: “Their dejected faces have been before me ever Another woman is nameless yet she is silent . Cast in since ”. Such images shaped her action and her prayer . the traditional role of a widow, she evokes pity . Her Recently, I was munching my way comfortably plight is extreme . She has lost not only her husband through my breakfast . I turned a page of the morning but her only son . Her only son who is her means of paper . I was confronted . The nameless woman looked support and status has died . She is weighed down

A woman whose relatives were killed in the earthquake cries while sitting on a pile of rubble in Lingguan township in Baoxing county, on April 21, 2013 . [AP Photo] http://www .theatlantic com/infocus/2013/04/sichuan-earthquake-recovery/100502/.

26 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 with grief for her loss of him . She is weighed down by restored . We have the potential to be “moved by com- anxiety for her future . passion ”. In the prologue, Luke writes of “the events Near the town gates of Nain, Jesus comes with his that have been fulfilled among us ”. Luke-Acts makes disciples and a large crowd . They met a large funeral pro- it very clear that the ‘fulfilment’ is still happening in cession for a young man . At the centre is the widowed, our times . Today, we are “in the crowd ”. We see tears sonless woman . Jesus sees her and “had compassion and powerlessness . Maybe, we are moved to compas- for her ”. The Greek word used for how Jesus felt means sion and in some way we restore life . What about the he was moved by a deep inner emotion accompanying silent and voiceless for whom life is not restored? mercy . The Jerusalem Bible translation of Jesus “felt Barbara Reid suggests that this widow and those sorry for her,” which we hear in the Sunday Lectionary, who mourn with her are prototypes of groups of does not capture this sense of deep emotion . women who come together in many places in our The same Greek word is used in two of the most global world to protest against death . Such were the loved parables of all . It is the inner movement the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo who in the late 1970s Good Samaritan felt when “he was moved with began marching silently every Thursday around the compassion” (10:33) . As a consequence, he chooses government square in Buenos Aires demanding to to cross the road to go to the wounded one rather know the fate of their disappeared husbands and than pass by on the other side . Similarly, the father, sons . The 2011 award winning film, Where Do We in the parable of the prodigal son, was “moved by Go Now? centres around a group of Lebanese women compassion ”. So he sees, feels, runs, embraces and who try to ease religious tensions between Christians kisses his son (15:20) . and Muslims in their village . Other stories of widows in Luke show them as And what of the image of the woman crying for active . In the temple, the prophet Anna sees, she dead relatives amidst the earthquake rubble whose “came and began to praise God and to speak about image I cannot get out of mind? As I seek to touch the child to all who were looking for the redemption those within my reach her image remains and influ- of Jerusalem” (2:38) . In the parable of 18:1–8, the ences my prayer and action . The questions linger and persistent widow demands justice . The poor widow grow: Who is she? Where is she now? How is she? gives her whole livelihood to the Temple (21:1–4) . Who is there for her? Is life restored to her? We hear nothing about the widow of Nain’s faith, or her reaction, or if later she became a disciple . Simply Kathleen Rushton is a Sister of Mercy working in adult that at the affliction of this silent and voiceless widow, education in the Diocese of Christchurch. Jesus is moved by compassion . His ministry to the grieving mother overshadows the restoration of the young man to life . His mother is reborn and restored to her place in the community when Jesus gives him Thank you for back to her . It is the moment of her resurrection your support. there in the crowd Because of your 2013 The large crowd who saw what happened glorified generosity others God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” (7:16) . ‘Visit’ is can live joyfully! used in the Old Testament for the times when God intervenes on behalf of the people . Luke uses this sense when Zechariah prays: “Blessed be the Lord of Israel, because he has visited his people” (1:68) . He continues, saying that through the compassion of our God a dawning “from on high will visit us” (1:78) . Jesus’ whole life and ministry are a ‘visitation’ of God to Israel and to “all the world ”. Later as Jesus came close to Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it because it did not recognise “the time of your visita- tion from God ”. (19:44) To be there, as those in the crowd were, was to recognise that in Jesus “God has visited his people ”. It 0800 22 10 22 was the silence, the tears and the powerlessness of the www.caritas.org.nz woman that brought Jesus to compassion . Life was

27 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 book and film reviews late creative flowering

Book: The Judas Tree Other poems are more indirect . The Judas Tree begins with botani- Poems by Lorna Staveley Anker cal exactness, “the rosy pink sprigs / are glued along / the heavy bole and Edited by Bernadette Hall limbs / milking the mother substance” but ends with a hint of the subject’s Canterbury University Press “the comfort of ISBN 978-1-927145-46-3, $20 obsession with suicide: its biblical name / which can here only Reviewer: Nicki Chapman be whispered.” Not all poems are to do with war he beautiful Rita Angus paint- or death . Some are plain funny, such ing, Tree (1943), on the cover as Mills & Boon with its maddened of this elegant little book has cry “Oh Bust and Boom, oh Mess and bothT subtle and overt connections with Doom, / your blasted name affrights this book’s poems . Rita Angus painted me.” Others have delightfully apt her spade searching / her garden for / three this about-to-bud cherry tree with a lost sons / images, “Ancient harbour cats / lope / sense of new creativity . She wrote of her wearing crab-apple faces.” Thomas Isaac and Ben. life, “I am beginning the second half . . I also enjoyed the poet Bernadette I am free to flower, if only for a few This truncated reproduction of her Hall’s introduction describing the years ”. Anker too, began a ‘flowering’ poem misses Anker’s attention to the 1980s Christchurch literary and femi- in the second part of her life, beginning visual shape of poetry . In this poem nist scene, where she first met Anker . to write poetry only in her fifties . Many the words are spaced like trenches Anker gratefully acknowledged all who of these have been published only for made by a spade . helped her, and Hall repeats that grati- the first time here . Anker digs diligently and tude, especially towards Anker’s daugh- Another connection between the delicately, but she is also warm and ter, but she deserves much herself for two artists is their strong response quirky . She describes her usually finding and sharing these poems, and to war . Angus was a pacifist . Anker’s demure and trim aunt, Hannah the helpful notes . Elizabeth Smither’s poetry takes no overtly political or Arabella, dancing with a tea cosy on poem for Lorna is another bonus . intellectual position, but the private her head to the kettle’s singing — Reading Anker is having a conversa- suffering of those often overlooked and of her horrific migraines — and tion with a courageous, creative, loving — children terrified by war’s bogies imagines her dancing to meet her woman, whose vitality and compassion and unsettled by the anguish of their lost-dead sailor love . extend us in unexpected ways . n adults, the never-married women Spiritual Growth Ministries whose loves did not return — is all the more poignant because it is so Aotearoa New Zealand very ‘ordinary’, or, at least, domestic . Spiritual Directors’ Formation Programme 2014-2015

Anker was born in 1914 . Her Are you interested in helping people grow in their relationship with God and do you father died two years later from already have people approaching you to talk about their spiritual life? cancer, and three of her mother’s Our well regarded and comprehensive, 2 year part-time course will inspire and form you brothers died in World War I . Her as an effective spiritual director . mother was traumatised, and Anker The programme involves a blend of: spent some of her childhood with her • Engaging in study of the theology and practices of Christian Spiritual Direction • Deepening personal spiritual formation . thrice-bereaved grandparents . Ellen’s • Regular workshops conducted by experienced practitioners Vigil achingly describes her grand- • Supervised one-to-one spiritual direction practice mother’s loss: Overseas participants complete most of the programme by distance but must attend the Benjamin Isaac Tom / Passchendaele Ypres one-week residential training component in the first year . and Somme… For details contact The Coordinator, Barbara McMillan: sgmtp@xtra co. .nz Ellen, / her three boys gone, /… Or visit our website: http://www .sgm .org .nz no longer counts crops / in season / but Expressions of interest are welcome . Applications due by 20th SEPTEMBER 2013 digs, diligently, delicately / digs down / Late applications may be considered . further down /

28 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a lesson in compassion Film: Barbara

Director: Christian Petzold

Reviewer: Paul Sorrell

ike another film set in the former East Germany, The Lives of Others (reviewed in LTM, July 2007), Barbara explores how common humanity can be kept alive in a totalitarian society where citizens’ movements are controlled and watching eyes and listening ears are everywhere . It also deals with the emergence of love, compas- sion and self-sacrifice in a wholly unpromising environment . Beautiful, elegant and fiercely independent, Dr Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss) has been sent to work in a provincial hospital after fall- buildings and squat Trabant cars of a broken relationship . Gradually, ing foul of the authorities in East project an atmosphere of neglect and their plight engages her compassion Berlin after applying for an exit spiritual decay . The constant surveil- and draws her away from the allure visa . We follow her around on her lance to which Barbara is subject of the West and the material wealth first day in her new job, where she sometimes turns intrusive and brutal, and security that it promises . holds herself aloof from her col- and even everyday exchanges are curt What happens at the end of the leagues, her every act guarded and and functional . film is unexpected, even shock- considered . Barbara appears self- But, almost despite herself, ing but, considered in the light of contained to the point of coldness . Barbara is drawn into the life of the Barbara’s inner trajectory, it marks She is particularly wary of her hospital and becomes involved with a turning point on her path to boss, Dr André Reiser, despite his Stella, a young runaway from a state maturity and a fuller humanity friendliness and evident attraction to institution, and Mario, a lad who that her repressive environment is her . She has good cause to be, as he, has attempted suicide as the result powerless to hinder . n too, fell from grace following a medi- cal misadventure — at least, that is the story he tells her — and part of his penance involves reporting on his Proof of Heaven colleagues, especially those with a less Eben Alexander This book will capture you, living up to its excellent than perfect past . reviews. The author, a prominent USA neurosurgeon, But Barbara is no innocent her- scientist and non-believer, had a self, as unfolding events make clear . near-death experience. He scientifically describes his We see her retrieving and stashing experience, and now firm belief, that God and the packages at a drop-off point along soul are real with death but a transition. her cycle route to work and having Index. Appendices. 196pp. .99 assignations with a lover who, it $34 +$4 p/pkg Note: Delivery time up to 10 days. transpires, is making plans for them Freephone 0508 988 988 to escape together to the West . There [email protected] is much to escape in her present 38 Higginson Street, Otane circumstances, despite the beauty of Central Hawke’s Bay the rural setting . The drab, peeling www.christiansupplies.co.nz

29 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 comment Crosscurrents Jim Elliston dark matter and logic $50 billion . Various states have dif- investing in exploration — about Scientific investigations have led to fering degrees of tolerance, ranging $647 billion last year . the theory that roughly 95 percent of from prohibition, to allowing use for the universe consists of ‘dark matter’ medical purposes, and even partial cautious optimism and ‘dark energy’ — ‘dark’, because decriminalization . On a happier note, here are two the existence of these mysterious He sees an obvious business case extracts from recent interviews in entities cannot be detected directly for a commercial venture and has Vatican Insider. by known means . We can ‘see’ only established a fund (aptly named Leonardo Boff, a prominent theo- about 5 percent of the universe; sci- ‘Privateer Holdings’), and a web-site logian censured by Rome, believes entists calculate another 24 percent and apps for Android and iPhones Pope Francis “will not just take up consists of matter, but its existence (currently 50,000 downloads per Vatican II, he will move it forward . can be deduced only from effects month) . He hopes to raise a further He has already given signals … He on the visible universe that can’t $7 million privately . Later, if new will advance collegiality in the gov- otherwise be explained; likewise the rules on ‘crowd-sourced funding’ ernment of the Church . . a pastor remaining 70-odd percent, which (the process of getting financial back- who is close to the people . . who will seems to be in the form of energy . ing — usually on-line, from a crowd emphasize more the dimension of a In other words, a logical deduc- of people) are approved, he aims to Church that is poor, straightforward, tion from observation, following the make a bid for public funding . divested of power, than a renewal laws of cause and effect, leads to the of doctrine ”. Ninety-seven year old conclusion that something, the real- business logic 2 Archbishop Loris Capovilla, John ity of which we cannot verify directly, Gwynne Dyer (NZ Herald, April 25) XXIII’s secretary: “[Francis and John] has a major bearing on our existence . analysed a report (‘Unburnable carbon have the same passion for people … Professor Sam Ting, who heads a 2013’) from the London School of The people saw John as a child of two billion dollar experiment at the Economics concerning fossil fuel mining theirs who had risen to the Throne International Space Station, counsels companies . It appears the top 200 of Peter . Francis was welcomed by caution regarding the existence of companies’ market-valuations, based everyone, like a living message of ‘new physical phenomena’ indicated on the sale value of current reserves, dialogue and fraternity . What Francis by results to date: “There are possible total about $4 trillion . This has enabled and John XXIII have in common is a explanations other than dark matter” . them to assume debt of $1 5. trillion . thirst for sharing and the search for (The Independent) On the face of it there are three possible a solution for mankind . When he consequences of this investment, given was on his deathbed, Roncalli kept business logic 1 increasing global climate change . on repeating: “I haven’t changed one An Observer sourced report describes One is that if we are to have a thing . I say the same prayers and the a business venture by Brendan reasonable chance to halt warming same Creed as when I was a child, but Kennedy, who has an engineering, before the predicted tipping point of 2 now we are beginning to gain a better soft-ware development, and business- degrees extra, about two thirds of cur- understanding of the Gospel ”. banking background . Kennedy noted rent reserves will have to stay un-mined . Great leaders are distinguished by that while the cannabis industry is The result: financial crash . Another their ability to communicate a vision huge in the US, it is also fragmented . possibility is no controls will be imposed in a way that appeals to people and There are numerous small enterprises by governments, thus allowing natural motivates them to follow . My belief producing various types of the stuff . feedback mechanisms to arise, resulting is not that Francis will create a revo- To the eye of an entrepreneur the in widespread natural disasters . lution but that he will be a catalyst situation calls out for rationalization, Dyer adds his own, third, possibil- that transforms the Church . Fifty which includes classification, quality ity: “It’s not disaster A or disaster B . years ago the pressures engendered control and marketing . It’s first one, then the other, mutually by Leo XIII’s reforms came to frui- After conducting research among interlocking and mutually reinforc- tion thanks to the conservative John the various interest groups currently ing . And then disaster B will mean XXIII . Over the past 30 years or so existing — such as growers, suppli- there’s no money left to do anything the myriad attempts, fruitful or not, ers, advertisers and politicians — he about disaster A ”. to implement Vatican II have created estimates that the US market is worth The companies, of course, are still pressures for further reform . n

30 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 comment treaty settlements – celebrating tuhoe!

Robert Consedine

arlier this year we witnessed Governments has been despicable . This are about 2 percent at current values the historic Treaty settlement included the continuous dishonouring and, in total, still represent less than process between the Crown of agreements by the Crown and racist the cost ($1 .7b) of bailing out South Eand Tūhoe . In March, the Deed of raids by the Police into Tūhoe territory Canterbury Finance . The current Settlement was initialled, signalling in 1916 and 2007 . As a consequence National/Māori Party coalition is the conclusion of years of challenging generations of Tūhoe people (85 per- committed to completing the settle- negotiations between Tūhoe and the cent of whom live outside Te Urewera) ments by 2014 . Crown . The Deed is in the process have suffered grievously . There is a continuing challenge of being ratified by the broader iwi The settlement presently negotiated for all of us to embrace this historic members and is due to be signed with the Crown includes Te Urewera process . It has been described as in June 2013 . The proposition was being vested in a new legal identity ‘the greatest cultural comeback in visionary in assisting Tūhoe to begin jointly managed by the Crown and history ’. All New Zealanders can to deal with over 140 years of shame- Tūhoe — moving to a Tūhoe major- stand tall as Governments continue ful treatment by the Crown . ity in three years . The settlement also to settle historic grievances and new Tūhoe had not signed Te Tiriti includes $170 million, acknowledge- and enduring relationships are built in 1840 and had initially remained ment of Te Mana Motuhake (self with the Crown and the Maori com- in full control of their customary determination), cultural redress, an munities . This process has continued lands . In 1865 during the ‘wars of agreed historical account, and an in the face of sometimes indifferent sovereignty’ the settler Government official Crown apology . and often hostile public opinion . confiscated most of their productive As at April 2013 the Crown has Although far from perfect, this is one land even though they were not in signed 62 Deeds of Settlement since area of New Zealand politics where rebellion . This was followed by a 1990 . The nominal value of the we have witnessed political courage at Government orchestrated ‘scorched settlements including financial and work — on both sides of the relation- earth’ policy with indiscriminate commercial redress is approximately ship . We all have much to celebrate . killing, burning houses and crops, $1 .4 billion (excluding the costs The big challenge for Pākehā is executing unarmed prisoners and of researching and negotiating the to continue to relinquish the persist- killing non-combatants . A Crown claims) . The South Island settlements ent myth of themselves as historic officer described Government actions are now complete . There are 60 North peacemakers and acknowledge the at the time as extermination . Island groups working through destructive legacy of a society that Since the 1860s the history of Tūhoe negotiations . It is widely accepted treatment by generations of Pākehā that the ‘full and final’ settlements . . . continued on page 23

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31 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013 a mother’s journal

well . As well, there were 12 young men aged 20 to 40 with schizophrenia — or some variant thereof . None was taking any treatment . They by Kaaren Mathias were really shells of who they had been . Some almost mute, Dear K and M all of them spending most of their days lying in bed, eating I have just had a quite amazing four alone or roaming and lost . One 26 days in Western Uttar Pradesh — and year old who was particularly unwell I hope you don’t mind my writing and was actually shackled and living up sharing about it, partly just to think on the roof . His parents are scared aloud as it was pervadingly intense . of him and poke his food through to any treatment that could make him I recently started some research him using a grill . well?” which seeks to describe and under- The wife of Jagu, 35 years old, And so I come to the clamour — stand access to health care and also explained that for six years they had the huge resonance inside me that is stigma and discrimination for ‘People given him medicine and he had been slowly and surely building — that living with Mental Disorders’ . This well . Then they had had to sell their working for mental health in these week I went house to house with our buffalo to pay for treatment, and so abandoned places is something I projects’ mental health volunteers to they eventually decided they could deeply want to do in the coming talk to individuals that volunteers not pay for medicines at all . For the years . Beyond these 50 people and had identified as ‘high risk’ . Using last seven years he has been generally their families in our project area, a mental illness screening tool I too unwell to work . Their five small there are millions of people in India assessed whether they could have a children sat and watched me, flicking with no access to care and the lack mental disorder, and sat and listened away flies . They were thin and ragged . of good models for community based to peoples’ stories . It was an intense, Sad because many of those who care . India has only one psychiatrist sad and also beautiful time . had gone to a ‘mental hospital’ or for every 300,000 people (which Intense because for 10 hours a day psychiatrist had had CT scans, EEGs would translate to 14 psychiatrists in the 40 degree C heat, travelling on and MRIs and been started on four for the population of New Zealand) . the back of a motorbike, I was hear- to seven drugs — and it had been so Clearly health care has to be deliv- ing the untold stories of individuals expensive they hadn’t returned . ered in a different way . But at least and families, of their long illnesses, And yet it was a beautiful time we can start with these 50 families of the very difficult or nonexistent because I witnessed such tenderness, carrying so much disability, pain and access to health care . . and of the and compassion and kindness . The compassion . pain, disappointment, shame, and husband of 45 year old Mridula, who It’s all a journey and I am only exclusion as well as at times violence had been paralysed with anxiety for starting on the journey — but so are given and received . The Hindi words many months, explained how he and we all really, when it comes to deliver- that kept resurfacing were “he was his mother had done the housework, ing health and health care for ‘People lost” and she was “no longer there ”. and cared for their children and made Living with Mental Disorders’ across The dimensions of grief and loss were her cups of tea while she lay there for India . I am not writing needing huge: such a long time — and how happy you to do anything — in case this s “He went away for a year — we he was that she was now well . And starts sounding like some aid agency didn’t know where he was ”. she smiled at him and me, and said appeal, but somehow wanted to let s “She didn’t talk to us for three how lucky she was to have such a you know about further steps in this months ”. great husband . In a hot airless room, journey . s “His wife and children in the I glimpse that we can bear, and show, end just left him here ”. the image of God . Love, Sad because the huge majority of Later that afternoon, the father Kaaren the 50 or so people I saw over these of 20 year-old Jagir said, “He has hit four days were undiagnosed and me, he speaks rude words to me in Kaaren Mathias lives and works in untreated . There was the severely front of my neighbours, and all our community health and development depressed man in his early 20s, and other children are angry that he does in North India with her husband the two women who had had post not do any work and lies on his bed . Jeph and four children. natal psychosis and were now fully But I still love him . . Please, is there

32 Tui Motu InterIslands June 2013