Holy Men and Women

St Peter Chanel SM is a significant saint for New Zealand. It is now 200 years since his birth. We have a whole section dedicated to his story.

The Molokai Movie has been realeased in the past few years. Find out about the story of Fr Damien.

The Church attaches 'patrons' to different groups of people. Their patronage is given on the basis of their lifetime interest and example from their lives. It's probably fair to say that some of these incidents stretch the imagination of our scientific minds, however on the other hand it's nice to be looked after by the Saints.

  • Did you know there are patron saints for grave diggers, brewers and people suffering with sore throats? Patron Saints is a list of the patronal categories along with a brief 'biographical' detail.
  • A fuller account of the Church's saints.
  • With the New Zealand release of the movie, "Molokai - the story of Fr Damien", FaithCentral is happy to have developed a WebQuest to help teachers and students in their study of the film. It is important however to note that the WebQuest also allows students who haven't seen the movie to study the life of this very inspiring man. It is available in the staffroom section.
  • An extensive index of saints with brief biography.

The Ecole Initiative is an online encyclopedia of early Church History. One section is devoted to images and icons of people from the early Church.

Celtic saints brings to life the stories of the Celtic saints, their vibrant spirit and the places associated with them.

This well designed site provides comprehensive coverage of the life of St. Therese of Lisieux with much primary source material - her writings, her letters, prayers and photos. There is also a section on the spirituality of Carmel.

A straightforward re-telling of the life of Edmund Rice set out in the context of the continuing traditions of the Edmund Rice movement.

This well designed site on Mother Teresa includes a well written and presented biography, her words (including some on streaming video) as well as examples of her prayers, meditations and reflections.

The World of Ignatius Loyola - A simple site which presents for you, as much as possible, the world that Ignatius would have seen himself, in his travels, the people, the places and spaces associated with him and how they looked at that time, as recorded by paintings, sketches, or left in woodcuts and drawings that commemorate the event.

John Paul II - The Holy See's memorial website features the Holy Father climbing a mountain with stages on the way represented by a hotlink for each of the 28 years from 1978 to 2005.

Every community holds its heroes in great honour. The believing Christian community is no exception. The whole aim of our lives is to be Christlike. The saints help us by their example to do this.


The saints: heroes of the Church
We all need people to look up to; people whose lives embody ideals we hold important and strive to emulate. Every form of human community has heroes. In New Zealand society, sports stars are an obvious example.  The Church community, too, is full of heroes and heroines. From the earliest days, it honoured the Apostles and the Christian martyrs who witnessed to their faith in Jesus even to the point of death. From generation to generation, the Church has continued to add to this list particular men and women, holding them up as examples of what it means to live a Christlike life, so that we can learn from them and imitate their qualities.*