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 “Mount”. Mon. 30th Oct. ‘72 Dear Mum & Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t get round to writing last week. At the moment Cardinal McKeefry is staying with us. He arrived on Friday night & I think he’s going tomorrow. Yesterday he opened the new Taradale Church. I played the organ for the ceremony. The church was packed. It is a very modern church – the architect is John Scott who designed the “Futuna” Chapel. It is shaped something like this:-  I can’t draw it! But that was meant to be the outside. When I went down to the Church on Saturday night to practise the organ, John Scott was there having a look at it (the Church) with various combinations of lights. Talking about architecture. A fortnight ago Rory Morrissey drew up plans for fun for a new Wellington Cathedral to replace the Basilica. He’s since heard that the Basilica in Hill St. is to be replaced sometime. Apparently various designers are working on various designs at the moment. Since the Cardinal & Father Tottman (his secretary) were here, Rory thought he’d present his plans. Fr. Tottman is very pleased with the interior layout, & wants to discus it with him! Rory is very excited of course, & immediately began drawing up plans for a new seminary should the authorities suddenly decide they wanted some plans! I met the Cardinal on Saturday morning. I was cleaning out the Fathers’ bathroom, & the toilets are laid out like this:-  There I was in Toilet 1 cleaning it up when out walked His Eminence out of Toilet 2. That was alright except he had bare feet & all he was wearing was his singlet & underpants! Somehow it didn’t seem the right moment to genuflect & kiss his hand, so I just said “Good morning your Eminence” & went on with the cleaning. I don’t think he minded! We are going down to Aurora Terrace early in February. This will be after my holiday home at Xmas. However, I’ll be coming back here before going back down to Wellington in February. I don’t mind at all not going away these holidays, even though the trip last year was most enjoyable. Besides, next year at Wellington will be a change. Fr. Delaney will be in charge of us for the first couple of weeks while Fr. Roach is in Australia as director of a Second Novitiate over there. Fr. Scully returned from Auckland yesterday after spending the last 3 weeks preaching the retreats to the Auckland Diocesan Priests. He stays here a week before going to Christchurch to preach the Retreats for the Christchurch Diocesan Priests. Please thank France for her letter which I was delighted to receive. I hope to answer it any day now! Well, I’d better sign off. My biro seems to be playing up now & again so that explains the messy writing in places. Love from Bruce |