Barat Building opening at Baradene College

May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language.   Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is (just) the afternoon (Sign)

May I specifically greet you:  Reuben O’Neill, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Baradene College of the Sacred Heart and your fellow board members; Patricia Radich, Principal of the College and members of your staff; Brother Pat Lynch, Chief Executive of the Catholic Education Office; Reverend Father John Allardyce, School Chaplain; Sister Elizabeth Snedden, Member of the Provincial Council of the Order of the Sacred Heart and other members of the Order; students, parents, alumnae, friends and family;  Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen. 

It has been with pleasure that I accepted the invitation to attend this part of the College’s Centennial celebrations.  As a Catholic Aucklander, this school has been a place to which I have related for a number of years.  When I was small, my family used occasionally to visit here and to host at home one of what we then called the Sacré Coeur sisters, Mother Amputch, because of her shared Fiji-Indian background with us.  A decade later, as a Sacred Heart College student, there were a number of events I attended which involved both schools.  I can bring to mind the time in the late 1950s when the school changed its name from Sacré Coeur to Baradene.  As nearby Remuera residents in the late 1980s and early 1990s one of our daughters had an after-school job here helping with care of the elderly nuns. 

I have been asked to formally open the new Barat Building by unveiling a plaque and later symbolically unlocking the doors.  Just before doing so, I would like to speak a little of the significance of today’s events and of the woman whose name provides this magnificent new building with its spirit.

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat was born 230 years ago in a place south of Paris.  Her life was dominated by upheaval.  She was just 10 when the French Revolution began in 1789.  It was a period of radical political and social change as an absolute monarchy and feudal privileges vested in the aristocracy gave way to principles of inalienable rights of ordinary people.

The changes were accompanied by violence.  Madeleine Sophie lived through the time of trial and execution of King Louis XVI in 1792 and of Marie Antoinette a year later and the bloodshed and repression of the Reign of Terror that followed.  France was almost constantly at war until Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.  Later in her life, there was further upheaval in 1848, when France was again in the grip of revolution.

It was in this time of turmoil that in 1800, she went to Paris and notwithstanding her youth became one of the founders of the Society of the Sacred Heart whilst still in her 20s.  It was one of a number of orders established between 1800 and 1820 as women throughout France, in a bid to restore the place of the church, established small communities focused on education and health.  As writer of one of the biographies of Sophie’s life, Phil Kilroy, wrote in 2000:  “Her initiative was in direct response to the devastation she experienced all around her … and from 1800 she committed herself to the restoration and renewal of her broken world.”

She led the Order till her death in 1865 by which time its work had spread internationally and had come to have more than 3000 members.   It was a remarkable achievement given prevailing views of many kinds. 

Despite being diminutive in size - just 1.5m tall, Madeleine Sophie was able to work effectively retaining a clear vision of what she wanted to achieve.  As the biographer Kilroy again notes:  “In a world where women’s powers and skills were not readily recognised or valued by either men or women, Sophie Barat found her way within constrictions and achieved her goals. In that sense she was the supreme diplomat …. She had no script to follow, few models to learn from and often compelled to work on her own.  She prepared the way for a new space and place for women far beyond her own time.”

In 1880, members of the Order, in fact from the United States, arrived in New Zealand and went first to Timaru.  Within a few years there was an expansion to Wellington and by 1908 it was seeking to establish a presence in Auckland.

A College opened the following year in rented premises at 95 Mountain Rd, Mt Eden, as near neighbours to what is now the Governor-General’s Auckland residence.

As the Society was then an enclosed Order, more significant land was needed and in the following year this property in Victoria Avenue, formerly owned by prominent merchant and politician, Hon Sir Edwin Mitchelson was obtained.

The first nuns were from many places.  They each came imbued with the spirit and vision of Sophie Barat, who recognised that children learned, not when they were chastised, but when they were loved.  Unlike many girls of her time, Madeleine Sophie had been educated (in her case by an older brother, Louis Barat) and she wanted all children to share in the value of education.  As she once said:  “Give only good example to the children; never correct them when out of humour or impatient. We must win them by an appeal to their piety and to their hearts. Soften your reprimands with kind words; encourage and reward them. That is, in short, our way of educating.”

More than 200 years after the founding of the Order that spirit and vision—our way of educating as Sophie Barat put it—continues to flourish at this School.  Former pupils of Baradene are noted in the community as leaders in a number of different fields.  For one example, earlier this year, I had the pleasure of presenting at Parliament a Top Scholar Award to student Alice Hickey.  As the School’s 2007 ERO report (which I have read) noted: “Baradene College continues to provide a high quality education for its students.  In the tradition of the Society of the Sacred Heart, there is a strong focus on educating the whole person, on academic achievement and fostering a ‘deep respect for intellectual values’.” 

This new $10 million enterprise—the Barat Building—which will be the art, science and technology building—is a fitting tribute both to Order’s founder and to this School and its “deep respect for intellectual values”. 

There is a wonderful opportunity here for both Baradene staff and students and a challenge.  The challenge is that bricks and mortar can only facilitate learning - they cannot make it happen.  It will be for each of you to put the Barat Building to its best good use.  It seems to me that based on the proud history of this school, to some of which I have referred, there can be some certainty that you will. 

In conclusion, I add congratulations to the School, its staff, students and wider community on reaching a centenary and on reaching 50 years in the current name, and on marking the occasion in as fitting a way as commissioning a new building for the future.  It thus gives me great pleasure to declare the Barat Building open.

And on that note of anticipation, I will close in New Zealand’s first language Māori, offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours.   No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.