Capuchin Franciscans
Our History
From Assisi in 1209 to the Marches of Italy in 1525 to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1958.
The story of the Capuchin Friars runs through three places: Assisi, the Marches of Italy, and, in time, New Zealand.
Assisi, 1209
Francis of Assisi, a merchant’s son who had known war and imprisonment at Perugia, gave up his father’s wealth before the bishop of Assisi and turned to a life of poverty and preaching. In 1209 Pope Innocent III gave oral approval to the way of life Francis proposed, and the Friars Minor — the “lesser brothers” — began. A written Rule followed in 1223, confirmed by the bull Solet annuere. Francis died on 3 October 1226; his feast is kept on 4 October. He was canonised in 1228.
Clare of Assisi, from a noble family in the same city, went to Francis on Palm Sunday in 1212 and received the habit at the Portiuncula. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies — the Poor Clares — and lived at San Damiano. Her own Rule, the first rule of religious life written by a woman, was approved in 1253, two days before her death on 11 August that year.
The Marches, 1525
Three centuries later, a group of friars in the Marches of Italy wanted to return to a stricter observance of prayer and poverty, closer to what Francis had first intended. Their reform began in 1525. In 1528 Pope Clement VII approved it by the bull Religionis zelus. The friars became known as Capuchins, after the “cappuccio” — the long pointed hood they wore. It was the people around them who gave them the name, not the friars themselves.
The Capuchins spread through Italy, and from 1574 across the rest of Europe.
The Martyrs of Charity
When the Black Death swept through Europe, the Capuchin friars stayed to nurse the dying while others fled. Over 2,000 of them died doing it. The Order remembers them as the Martyrs of Charity. Today, close to 10,500 friars carry that same Rule forward around the world.
New Zealand
The friars trace an earlier presence in New Zealand to Fr Jeremiah O’Reily, who arrived in Wellington on 31 January 1843 as the city’s first resident Catholic priest. He built the first Catholic church in Wellington that same year and is buried in Mount Street Cemetery. In 1993 the Wellington Archdiocese marked the 150th anniversary of his coming.
The Capuchin Fraternity of Aotearoa New Zealand itself was founded in 1958, at the invitation of Cardinal McKeefry. Two friars came and took up residence in Wellington: Br Matthias Murphy OFM Cap, appointed chaplain to Victoria University, and Br Agathangelus Herlihy OFM Cap, appointed Parish Priest of Northland-Kelburn Parish.
In the decades since, friars from Ireland, the Philippines, Indonesia and India have ministered here. Three Irish friars died while serving in New Zealand and are buried in this country. In 2016, at the Pacific-Asia Capuchin Conference held from 29 February to 4 March that year, oversight of the friars in New Zealand passed from the Irish Capuchin Province to the St Fidelis Province of North India.
Pax et Bonum — Peace and all good.