NZ Catholic Media Office Closed

The New Zealand Catholic Church is closing down its communications office, leaving three people out of a job.

The national media office of the New Zealand Catholic Bishop's Conference would be disestablished at the end of this month, national director of the office Lyndsay Freer said.

A long-time voice for the Church, Ms Freer, said the conference had decided to restructure its operations.

From January, the role of the Church's national communications office would be handled at its secretariat in Wellington with the appointment of a communications advisor, she said.

In the new role the advisor would focus more on internal communications.

She said she did not apply for the new position because she was not entirely happy with the new model, because it was not as engaged with media as she would like.

"I hope it does not lessen the strong relationships we have built up with the media."

Ms Freer told the Weekend Herald that church politics had something to do with the redundancies.

Some people had not appreciated the positions she took when talking to the media, she said.

However, the president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishop's Conference, the Most Rev Denis Browne, said politics did not play a part in the decision.

Source: NZPA