New church opens in Moerewa

About 400 people gathered for the consecration of Moerewa's new Catholic church. Photo / Stephen Western

A new church has been opened in Moerewa more than 60 years after the community started fundraising to build it.

The Catholic Church of St Therese of Lisieux, on Snowden Ave, was consecrated on Saturday by the Bishop of Auckland Patrick Dunn with about 400 people in attendance.

Fundraising started in the 1950s for a school but when that proved impossible the money was put towards a church instead. With ongoing fundraising, donations and bequests the fund eventually reached $500,000, enough to build the new church debt-free.

Parish priest Kerry Prendeville said the old church was too small, unhealthily damp in winter and unsuitable for tangi due to its long, narrow shape. The piles were dodgy and the roof needed replacing.

The new church - the hub for the Moerewa/Kawakawa, Paihia and Russell parishes - had been built entirely by local contractors which had helped keep the costs down.

"We wanted to invest in something that people would be proud of, and show we believe that Moerewa has a future," Father Prendeville said.

Some features of the old church had been reused but the windows - St Therese in stained glass above the door and a frosted glass triptych above the altar combining Christian and Maori motifs, such as the eels symbolic of Moerewa - had been made especially by St John the Baptist Studio in Auckland.

The old church had been sold and would be transported to Motukiore in Hokianga.

The original plan, about 15 years ago, was not to build a new church but to move two disused Catholic churches, from Towai and Kawakawa, on to the site and somehow combine all three.

That was eventually found to be impractical and the other churches were sold. The Kawakawa church ended up near Russell and Towai's on Waiheke Island. Both were to be restored for use as wedding venues.

Moerewa's old Catholic church was originally transported from Great Barrier Island around 1920 by the first manager of the freezing works, George Leaity, who was concerned that Catholic workers from Hokianga had nowhere to pray.