Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples on 30 August 2006, appointed National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in New Zealand, for a five year term (2006-2011), Rev. Fr P. Paul Gainsford Shannahan, S.M..
The new National Director was born in Greymouth, diocese of Christchurch, on 15 February 1935. In 1958 he entered the Marist Seminary in the Archdiocese of Wellington, where he studied Philosophy and Theology. He did his Novitiate in Highden, Palmerston North, in 1959. He was ordained a priest on 4 July 1964 in Christchurch Cathedral. He then completed his studies at Loyola University, Chicago, at Seton Hall-Newark, in Louvain in Belgium, and at the Genealogical Research Institute of New Zealand and Victoria University, Wellington. He has served in various parishes and held numerous responsibilities for the Society of Mary. Since 1989 he has been head of the Office for Evangelisation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of New Zealand. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 8/11/2006 - righe 12, parole 162)
