The church is sited on a part of land purchased by an Anglican Missionary Robert Maunsell, who in June 1858, sold it to Pompallier to be used for religious and educational purposes.

[2] The architect Edward Mahoney designed the church using what has been called a "pared-back Gothic Revival style...[notable for]...well-lit interiors and the use of cross-braced roof trusses".

[5] The church was originally a chapel of ease attached to the Cathedral, with Father O'Hara as the priest, until 8 December 1862 when it became a formal parish run by the Franciscans for eleven years.

[8] When Fynes died in 1887, the New Zealand Herald appended a brief biographical sketch of the man they said was "possessed in no ordinary degree of soundness of judgement, devotion to duty, and a happy disposition of mind".

During his time the interior walls of the church were painted in a "light blue colour", noted as one of many improvements made by "the indefatigable parish priest, the Rev.

[4]: p.20  Kehoe died in 1914 and an obituary in the Taranaki Herald noted that even during his sickness, he was "he was unremitting and full of zeal in the discharge of his priestly duties..[and]...in his day he was an able preacher and a very accomplished musician".

Monsignor Jeremiah Cahill, parish priest from 1916–1925, was known as "a genial and sporting Irishman and a great personality",[4]: p.23  and is noted as a life member of the Auckland Marist Brothers Old Boys Rugby Club.

John Brennan was parish priest from 1925 to 1930 followed by Monsignor Michael Edge who served in the role from 1930 until his death in 1942, and was remembered for his "Tridentine altar arrangements...[which]...were to become the swan song of the long-standing liturgical order".

[4]: p.25  In 1931, the 70th anniversary of the church was celebrated and modifications were noted as including new "Gothic arches, columns and pelmets...[and]...altar rails...[which]...emphasised the importance of the sanctuary in the existing liturgical order".

[4]: p.25 Father Edward Forsman, who was parish priest from 1949 until his retirement in 1974, has been described as "a man of genial temperament generous in hospitality, of musical and poetic gifts, and accomplished preacher and a born raconteur...also a scholar, philosopher and theological of some distinction".

[18] In 1986, one historian in regard to the place of the church within Parnell concluded "[that] aggiornamento has been accomplished without the usual recourse to an apparatus of lay councils and conferences; nor the voices of theological liberalism and neo-Modernism and politicising much heard in the precincts".

In 2009, a local group put a proposal to the Council to allow the demolition of a two-story building and construction of one that "would be four storeys high with shops, offices, a cafe and basement car parking for 86 vehicles", and the Parish priest Monsignor Kevin Hackett expressed his concerns about the church being completely shaded in winter, the extra traffic in the small side road and the potential for the site to be destabilised and cause a slip.