Rosminians never retire, as Dunedin writer Mike Crowl discovers.
Go to any Italian city and you're likely to find a Via Antonio Rosmini.
Many Italian streets are named after statesmen, but Rosmini was a Catholic priest; more than a priest, a philosopher in the line of great Catholic philosophers such as Augustine and Aquinas.
Rosmini was the founder of the Institute of Charity (commonly known as the Rosminians), an order of brothers and priests (and later sisters) who work wherever God calls them: getting their hands dirty helping others with basic needs, teaching in schools, and pastoring in parishes, such as Sacred Heart in NEV, Dunedin.
They were previously at St Alphonsus in Waverley where they replaced another order with Italian roots, the Redemptorists.
Rosmini's own task centred on teaching the wider Church.
As is often the case with a prophetic voice, his work was regarded with suspicion by some of those in power.
It took almost 100 years, during that great watershed in the Church's history, Vatican II, for Rosmini's concerns to be accepted as valid. Father Michael Hill, a Rosminian and long-time Dunedin resident, has produced the first English-language biography of Rosmini for almost 60 years.
His Provincial, Fr David Myers, had said that if Fr Hill ''didn't write this biography he didn't think anyone else would,'' so Fr Hill, now ''retired'', put his golfing on hold, and spent two years of his life on the book.
Research required two visits to Italy and a huge amount of background reading.
Rosmini was extraordinarily prolific, not only writing many books but also vast numbers of letters to his family, colleagues and friends.
Fr Hill, who'd spent much of his life as a teacher, claims not to see himself as a writer.
Nevertheless he'd produced a smaller work on Rosmini 20 years ago, and for about 13 years was also founding editor of Tui Motu, the NZ Catholic magazine which has its editorial office in Dunedin.
• Fr Hill's arrival in New Zealand was unexpected, to say the least.
''I was scurrying along one day between classes in a college in England when I happened to run into our Father Provincial. 'Michael,' he said, 'have you a minute?' I had about 10 seconds. 'I want you to buy a bus and take it to Gore, in New Zealand'.''
Not surprisingly, Fr Hill had never heard of Gore, but some Rosminians were already working there at the new Catholic co-ed secondary school, St Peter's, (along with the Sisters of Mercy), and he was about to join them.
He became the legal owner of a 16-seater Ford Transit minibus and imported it into New Zealand.
''At the time it was the only one of that model in the country. It caused the traffic authorities all manner of problems in allowing us to carry 15 passengers, which is a very significant number in this sporting nation.''
Fr Hill grew to have a great fondness for St Peter's, where in due course he became its second principal.
He remembers the Catholic people of the town and the farming community as being immensely supportive.
''And their children were well-mannered, unlike the children in the English schools I'd left behind.''
One of the other teachers at St Peter's was Brother Tedesco.
He was the first Rosminian to die in New Zealand, and at his funeral ''literally hundreds of his past pupils from far and near converged on Gore. He was the most loyal, wholehearted and enthusiastic staff member any school could wish for''.
After 10 years in Gore, Fr Hill was sent to the much larger Rosmini College in Auckland.
He came back to Dunedin in 1978, to take over the editorship of The NZ Tablet, which for many years had been under the firm and sometimes controversial hand of John Kennedy.
Though it had been subsidised by the Tablet Printing Company for some time, the weekly magazine was struggling.
Fr Hill found himself with a newspaper that required a great deal of funding to get it back on its feet.
He sought donors, and was amazed to find $150,000 coming in from well-wishers.
Unfortunately it all had to be sent back again because in the meantime the board had decided to close the magazine.
However, the Dominicans initiated a move to start a challenging and informative paper from scratch, one that was independent of any Diocesan control.
Some of the donors sent their money back again, but Fr Hill said to the new board that a monthly magazine would only be viable if they had a minimum of 2000 subscribers in their first year.
There were 2400 by the end of the designated period, and Tui Motu continues to this day.
Fr Hill was editor from 1997 to 2009, during which time the paper thrived and won awards, as it continues to do.
It seems that Rosminians never retire: no doubt as soon as Michael Hill - ''the golfer, not the jeweller'' - attempts to pick up his clubs again, he'll find yet another ''order'' from on high on his desk.
