Jean Forest

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Fr JEAN FOREST, aged 37 (on arrival in New Zealand in Group VI in 1842).

He came not as a missionary but as a Marist superior representing Fr Colin to inspect Marist life and intervene with Pompallier about his problems with his Marist staff. He travelled around the various stations in the first year or so, and then stayed on in Auckland where Pompallier appointed him Rector in March 1845 to minister to the Europeans. He never learned to speak Maori. Soon after his arrival in Wellington with the 1850 Viard Marist exodus, he was appointed parish priest in Lower Hutt. In October 1859 he founded Napier parish which he served faithfully for 25 years. He died on 28 September 1884, aged 79, and is buried in Napier Hill cemetery.


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Jean Forest

1st Visitor General[1] of the Missions

Born 1804 in Chuyer of the diocese of Lyons in the department of Loire, Jean Forest was among the 20 men who first took vows in the Society of Mary on 24th September 1836.
Appointed as Visitor General of New Zealand[2] to the Missions in 1841 he set off for Oceania from London aboard the vessel London on 16th November 1841 and arrived in Port Nicholson (Wellington) on 6th April 1842. (It was said by some he never left New Zealand again; but in fact, he had six months in Sydney in 1858.) Colin gave him precise instructions. [3] He was to see all the Marists, learn their situation, privations and dangers and he was to work as closely as possible with Pompallier and the religious superior designated by him. [4] The General Administration had also charged him with the task[5] of examining whether a house was possible and necessary for Marists having its own land. The intention was that this would eventually become the Provincial House and a house for sick and aged confrères. It would also be a place for new missionaries to stay while learning the language of their mission. The visitor was to draw up a report which could be submitted to the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda in Rome, and he carefully noted he was not conferring any authority on Jean Forest. Colin did not want to encroach in any way on the “rights and authority of the vicar apostolic”. [6]
On arrival in New Zealand Fr Forest found about 200 Irish Catholics in Wellington which had an overall population of 2,000 at the time. Five days after arriving in New Zealand he continued to his final destination – Kororareka via Auckland. [7] After a long and rough voyage, he reached there on 4th May 1842. In his travels he ministered to all the people he met.
Within a short time, he realized the bad situation of the missionaries in New Zealand, largely due to Bishop Pompallier's financial mismanagement and overindulgent zeal for conversions, and he determined to prepare some proposals for Fr Colin, and for the Holy See if necessary. Although Pompallier did not welcome the idea of another 'superior' of the missionaries and was afraid of Forest infringing on his ecclesiastical authority, he knew from previous experience[8] that Forest was most diplomatic. From 1843 Forest had the responsibility of a provincial but he refused the title. [9]
In 1843 he organized retreats for the missionaries. On 8th January he starts a retreat at Tauranga; [10] in late February at Kororereka, Garin and Pompallier alternated ‘on mission’ while Servant gave the pastoral part; and on April 2nd at Hokianga, he preached for others and then did his own retreat in Holy Week. From 1845[11] Forest was based at Auckland with Father Petitjean. Colin did write to Forest from time to time, but Forest wrote to Colin much more often. [12] Colin regularly exhorted Forest to make sure Marists were always two or three in the same mission station.
In 1850 Forest was appointed superior by Colin for a term of 3 years, with the title of “Visitor”. [13] In the same year he opened the mission in the Hutt valley and built the church of Saints Peter and Paul, also a presbytery and school.
Poor health in April 1859 forced him to transfer to Meeanee parish in Hawke's Bay as assistant to Fr Reignier. In 1857, Napier became the capital of a new province and the 45th Regiment was quartered there. The Catholic population increased so that same year a Catholic church was opened in Napier to which Forest moved in August. In 1860 Fr Forest was appointed Napier's first parish priest, a position he held until his death in 1884.
Fr Forest welcomed the Sisters of the Mission to New Zealand in 1865. He was aware that Fr Reignier, in 1867, was opening St Joseph's Providence, a school for Maori and mixed-race girls. This school is still in existence at Greenmeadows and is now known as St Joseph's Māori Girls’ College.
Remembering his charge to buy a property for the Society of Mary he was grateful Fr Reignier had already bought a property on Meeanee Flat which was suitable as a retreat for the sick and elderly. Later this became the site of the Mt St Mary's Seminary which, later still, moved to Greenmeadows.
He was authorized in 1872 to receive the consecration of Mademoiselle Suzanne Aubert[14] as a novice into the Third Order of Mary and to accept her profession a year later. Suzanne Aubert went on to become Mother Aubert, Foundress of the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion. Fr Forest also welcomed the Marist Brothers to Napier in 1878, almost ten years after first requesting them to come.
Forest administered the Wellington diocese on Viard’s death in 1872, and again in 1880, during Archbishop Francis Redwood’s ad limina visit to Rome.
Fr Jean Forest, 1st Visitor General of the missionaries of Oceania, died in Napier, New Zealand on 28th September 1884, and was buried in the Napier Hill Cemetery.

Notes

  1. ↑ At the stage Forest leaves there are 3 priests and 3 brothers in the islands. He never visited the islands with his vessel sailing from London directly to NZ. CS1 doc 301 mentioned islands but specifically named NZ; scope later narrowed - Of New Zealand – see CS2 doc 31 [4].
  2. ↑ See CS2 doc 32 [4].
  3. ↑ CS 1, 301 (20th October 1841, Colin to the missionaries of Oceania).
  4. ↑ Jean-Claude Colin, Reluctant Founder, Justin Taylor, ATF Press, Hindmarsh, Australia (2018), p. 572.
  5. ↑ CS1 doc 301 [5].
  6. ↑ Jean-Claude Colin Reluctant Founder, Justin Taylor, ATF Press, Hindmarsh, Australia (2018), p.573.
  7. ↑ 18420411 departure Wellington on New York Packet for Auckland arrive 18420428 New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 13/04/1842, p. 2. 18420503 departure Auckland on Minerva for Bay of Islands arrive 18420504 (veille de l'Ascension LRO doc 166) / The Australian 23/06/1842.
  8. ↑ CS2 doc 31 [12].
  9. ↑ LRO doc 245, 247, 254.
  10. ↑ LRO doc 247, 253, 254.
  11. ↑ LRO doc 434.
  12. ↑ Forest wrote 12 letters to Colin from 3rd April 1842.
  13. ↑ CS4, 135 (21 January 1850).
  14. ↑ She had arrived at Auckland in 1860.
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