‘Barefooted’ Bishop to retire
Lloyd Ashton | 14 Jul 2009
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Bishop John Paterson, former chair of the ACC, now retiring as the Bishop of Auckland.
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Bishop John Paterson, near the back steps of the Auckland diocesan office in Parnell.
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Bishop John, 10th Bishop of Auckland, who retires next March.
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Bishop John Paterson, preaching in his cathedral.
The Rt Rev John Paterson, who will retire as Bishop of Auckland next March, has been one of the key figures in the Anglican Church over the past 25 years. Not just in New Zealand, but also on the worldwide scene.
On the homefront, he’s led Auckland, the country’s largest diocese, for the past 15 years. He led the wider “provincial” church for six years (from 1998 to 2004) – and he has worked to achieve a fairer deal for Maori and Pacific Island Anglicans, who are now equal partners in the Anglican constitution.
On the world scene, for the last seven years he’s chaired the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) – which is one of four “Instruments of Communion” that link the world’s 80 million Anglicans into an international communion.
The world’s best-known Anglican, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, paid tribute to Bishop John’s skill as the Chair of the ACC at his final meeting in May, in Jamaica. He also spoke of his personal respect for Bishop John’s “judgement, faithfulness and friendship.”
Dr Williams awarded him the Cross of St Augustine, a medal given to those who have rendered exceptional service to the Church, and told Bishop John that he had contributed “perhaps more than you will ever know, to the life of this communion and so to the life of the church catholic.”
John Campbell Paterson was born in Pukekohe in 1945, and was accepted for training as an Anglican priest even before he’d finished at King’s College. He then enrolled at the University of Auckland.
Back then, first-year arts students had to study a “foreign language” – and John Paterson chose Maori, which was then regarded by New Zealand universities as a foreign language.
He finished his BA in 1966, studied theology at St John’s College, and was ordained priest in 1970. He’d married Marion Anderson in 1968, and they had moved to Whangarei, where he served a brief curacy.
The then Bishop of Auckland, the Rt Rev Eric Gowing, knowing that John had some Maori under his belt, then sent him to the Maori pastorate of Waimate North in 1971.
The seven years he spent there were, he says, crucial to his development. The old people took him under their wing, schooled him to operate comfortably in te reo, and helped him overcome his natural shyness.
He returned to Auckland to serve under Kingi Ihaka, who was then Auckland Maori Missioner – and was soon appointed Chaplain to Queen Victoria School, the Anglican high school for Maori girls.
In that role he broadened his experience and built up his credibility with a wider group of Maori, who warmed to his skills on the marae, and to his unassuming manner.
“He became known,” says Ben Te Haara, the retired Bishop of te Tai Tokerau, “as one of those ‘barefooted Pakeha’ who were willing to walk quietly in the Maori world.”
In 1982 Bishop Whakahuhui Vercoe asked John Paterson to become the secretary to the Bishopric of Aotearoa, the Maori Anglican Church.
At that time Maori protest about the nation’s failure to honour the Treaty of Waitangi was in full swing – and the church was beginning to grapple with the implications of this.
In 1986 the church asked John Paterson to become the secretary of a new bicultural commission to consider the Treaty. That led to another job as secretary of a bicultural commission to revise the constitution of the church.
In 1986 he was also appointed secretary to the whole church. During his watch, the church adopted A New Zealand Prayer Book/He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa – and the following year, it adopted a new constitution and became: The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.
The changes were more than cosmetic. Under this new deal, Pakeha Anglicans let go of their dominant position within the church, and space was made for three autonomous cultural streams: Tikanga Maori, Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Pasefika.
This new constitution, which took effect in 1992, reshaped the church, most obviously with the creation of five hui amorangi (roughly equivalent to dioceses) each led by a Maori bishop. As secretary, John Paterson also played a pivotal role in the bedding-in of that new constitution.
In 1994 the Rt Rev Bruce Gilberd retired as Bishop of Auckland – and on February 24 1995, John Paterson was ordained as its 10th Bishop.
He’d had little Pakeha parish experience – but Auckland and Northland have big Maori populations, and the diocese wanted a leader who could partner the other tikanga.
Just three years later, Bishop John Paterson – still the most junior of the Anglican bishops – was elected by General Synod (the “parliament” of the Anglican Church) to the primacy, or overall leadership of the church in the province.
In time he found himself juggling three significant jobs: Bishop of Auckland, Primate, and leader of the Anglican Consultative Council.
John Paterson had been elected as this church’s ordained representative to the ACC in 1988. In 1996, he was elected as Vice-Chair of the ACC, and in 2002, he was chosen to chair the ACC.
In June 2005 the ACC met in Nottingham, and Bishop John had the task of chairing what became its most turbulent meeting.
Two years earlier, the Diocese of New Hampshire in the USA had elected the openly gay and partnered Gene Robinson as its Bishop; at about the same time the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster approved a rite for the blessing of same-sex unions.
These two North American moves plunged the Anglican Communion into one of the biggest crises in its 475-year history, with conservatives and evangelicals deeply opposed to the “innovations”, and some of the communion’s biggest provinces in Africa and Asia on the brink of breaking away.
Bishop John’s final meeting in charge of the ACC – at Kingston, Jamaica, last May – was a good deal calmer than that torrid 2005 Nottingham meeting.
In his tribute, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of the “clarity and charity” Bishop John had exercised as chair of the ACC. Dr Williams also praised Bishop John’s “realism”, his not wanting to minimise or gloss over difficulties and conflicts.
Archbishop David Moxon, the senior bishop of the New Zealand dioceses, adds to that tribute by noting that Bishop John’s leadership has been marked by what he calls “a passionate coolness.”
“He never panicked, he never lost perspective, and he was not at all romantic in the naïve sense.
“He’s a very rational person. Even-handed, and even-thinking. He’s realistic, down to earth – but also careful, and a very thorough planner. Bishop John is like a good captain, calmly scanning the horizon to see where things are heading in the long term.”
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