Piera McArthur has taken the life of Bishop Pompallier and transformed it into a vibrant anthology. She writes;Through the mists of the past looms a haunting image. It is that of Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier, first Catholic Bishop of Western Oceania.
He is tall, handsome, sophisticated, splendid in his purple robes, a gloriously coloured figure against the dark green of the bush and a splendid product of post Napoleonic France. Well educated and suave, he comes from Lyons, where his family is involved in the silk trade. It is 1838 and Felton Mathew, New Zealand’s first Surveyor General writes to his wife, ‘today we had a visit from the French Bishop. He is a fine, handsome, intelligent man, perfectly the gentleman in manner and a striking contrast to our own missionaries who to their disgrace, be it said, have endeavoured to turn the natives against him... I intend to call upon him’.
Dear Bishop, I have loved our collaboration - Piera
