Table of Contents
Judy Gill
The New Zealand Catholic bishops’ National Liturgy Office describes Matariki as having “deep spiritual roots” and “strong links with the sacramental nature of our faith.”[1] In later text, the language becomes explicitly devotional, referring to “the wondrous mystery of Atua”, “the Eternal One”, and “the Holy One”, and ending, “Through Christ and in the perfect unity of the Holy Spirit, we pray.”[2][4]
That is not simple politeness toward a public holiday, but the absorption of another sacred framework into Catholic language and prayer.
To describe Matariki as having “strong links with the sacramental nature of our faith” is an astonishing theological claim: that a belief system publicly constructed from 1995 onwards should be linked back to a faith two millennia in age.[1][2][4][8]
The liturgical problem goes further. The Catholic text speaks of “the wondrous mystery of Atua who loves you” within a ritual specifically created to honour and celebrate Matariki.[2][4] In Catholic language, mystery is sacred language. Bread and wine are sacred mysteries. Sacraments are sacred mysteries. Once that language is placed inside a Matariki liturgical framework, the line between cultural acknowledgement and theological incorporation has already been crossed.[2][4]
ATUA/DEITIES/GODS, MANUSCRIPT MYSTIQUE, AND MODERN CONSTRUCTION
Te Papa’s Matariki material does not present the stars merely as astronomical markers. It says each visible star has unique characteristics that Māori acknowledge and honour, and assigns them domains and meanings. Pōhutukawa is linked with the dead and Te Ara Wairua. Hiwa-i-te-Rangi receives wishes and aspirations. Matariki is presented as the mother of the others.[5][6] This is not neutral sky-watching, but a cosmological and spiritual system.
A great deal of the presentation rests on mystique and a manuscript: a 400-page family document described as a ‘manuscript’ is made to sound like something with the aura of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But the public account is of a family-held written record, passed to Rangi Mātāmua in 1995 and brought into public circulation only then.[8]
Who copied it down, compiled it, or passed it along is not the point. The point is that the religious content itself appears to trace back to one originating voice. What is now treated as a spiritual framework of public significance seems to rest, at its source, on the recollections and narratives of one old tohunga.[8]
What had largely been treated in public writing as an astronomical and seasonal event is now being repackaged as a spiritually saturated religious system and then presented as though it had always stood in that form.[7][8]
The same pattern appears in the imagery. Te Papa credits the key Te whānau Matariki image to Te Haunui Tuna (2016), supplied by Rangi Mātāmua, and links the framework to Matariki: The Star of the Year, published in 2017.[5][7] Te Papa’s later teaching resources use personified illustrations that are more polished and more classroom-friendly.[6]
FROM IMAGE TO INSTITUTION
Outside a Catholic youth centre in New Zealand, the figures on display are not Christ, Mary or the saints, but Māori pou representing tūpuna/ancestral spirits. The point is not decorative style, but spiritual symbolism. In that worldview, tūpuna are not empty motifs. They are understood as spiritually present, spiritually real and still able to be addressed through karakia. Syncretism in visible form.
Thresholds matter. What stands at the entrance tells you what is being honoured. If the imagery at that threshold does not witness to Christ, but instead gives visual honour to another sacred order, the issue is not ethnicity or style, but spiritual symbolism.
More serious still is St Joseph’s Church, Jerusalem/Hiruhārama [the formal name of the church], on the Whanganui River Road north-west of Whanganui, built in 1893, where comparable symbolism appears in the altar itself.[9]
The pattern is consistent: a modern spiritual framework is dressed in the language of antiquity, supplied with contemporary art, amplified by state recognition, softened for children and classrooms, and then offered to institutional Christianity as something spiritually enriching and morally beautiful.
This is a religious critique, not a racial one. Not all Māori believe this and not all people of Māori ancestry accept this spirituality as truth. What is being criticised is a belief system with sacred beings, sacred narratives, sacred symbolism and expanding claims on public life.
ROME, CONVERGENCE, AND THE ONE-WORLD RELIGIOUS FRAME
The Catholic example matters because of its sacramental claims. Once a church says that another sacred system has “deep spiritual roots”, has “strong links with the sacramental nature of our faith”, and can be folded into blessing and prayer, the boundary has already fallen.[1][2][4]
This follows an older Roman pattern. Rome built its empire not only by conquest, but by absorption, taking in the gods, cults, and sacred symbols of the peoples it ruled and reorganising them within a wider universal order. The Pantheon stood as a monument to that habit. After Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge in 312, the Edict of Milan in 313 established toleration for Christianity within the empire, and by 380 Theodosius I had adopted Nicene Christianity as the Christian norm.[10][11][12][13] The political form changed, but the old Roman habit of absorption did not simply vanish.
Across international institutions there is increasing emphasis on shared global values, cultural convergence, interfaith cooperation, and the language of “one human family”.[1]
This is not about Māori people in general, but about a narrow class of university-based ‘prophets’, cultural theorists and institutional promoters. Antarctica, the wairua of water, the airwaves, 5G, outer space – the scientific proof may never come, but science is not the point: religion is. If “mātauranga Māori science” fails, then te ao Māori spirituality may still win. Its ultimate victory would be a chapel to the Matariki atua/gods at the Vatican – the Roman and universal heart of a converged one-world religion.
The deeper issue is not whether every grand claim can be scientifically proven. It is that spiritual systems are increasingly presented as knowledge systems, normalised in institutions and protected from scrutiny by being recast as culture, heritage and identity.
CONCLUSION
A modern religion is marketed as ancient and spiritual systems are renamed as culture, heritage, and knowledge. What begins as local accommodation points toward wider convergence. This is why syncretism matters. It is not just a local theological error. It is a cultural preparation for a converged one-world religious framework. Same pattern. New land. New gods.
REFERENCES
[1] National Liturgy Office, NZ Catholic Bishops Conference. “Matariki – unifies us as one human family.” 21 June 2022. http://nlo.org.nz/news-and-events/media-releases/matariki-unifies-us-as-one-human-family/
[2] National Liturgy Office, NZ Catholic Bishops Conference. “Ma tātou katoa a Matariki – Matariki belongs to all of us.” 14 July 2023. http://nlo.org.nz/news-and-events/media-releases/matariki-a-space-for-us-all/
[3] National Liturgy Office, NZ Catholic Bishops Conference. News and Events archive. http://nlo.org.nz/news-and-events/
[4] National Liturgy Office, NZ Catholic Bishops Conference. “Welcoming Matariki in Prayer: A Catholic Prayer to Honour and Celebrate Matariki.” http://nlo.org.nz/assets/A-Catholic-Ritual-Prayer-to-Honour-and-Celebrate-Matariki.pdf
[5] Te Papa. “The stars of Matariki.” http://tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/matariki-maori-new-year/what-and-who-matariki/stars-matariki
[6] Te Papa. “Activity: What are the domains of each of the stars?” http://tepapa.govt.nz/learn/for-educators/teaching-resources/matariki-akonga-nui-matariki-for-teachers/explore/teaching
[7] Matamua, Rangi. Matariki: The Star of the Year. Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2017.
[8] Arnold, Naomi. “The inheritance.” New Zealand Geographic. https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-inheritance/
[9] Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. “St Joseph’s Church (Catholic).” https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/161/
[10] Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Constantine I: Legacy.” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor/Legacy
[11] Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Edict of Milan.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edict-of-Milan
[12] Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Theodosius I.” https://www.britannica.com/summary/Theodosius-I
[13] Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Rome: Campus Martius.” https://www.britannica.com/place/Rome/Campus-Martius
