The faithful made novenas to St Anthony to try to obtain a proper church building, and eventually promised regular devotions and an annual processsion should the church come over to their use. It was under their time in Whanganui that St Anthony's Church went on the market. The Superior General sent another newly-ordained Argentine to help Fr Gentili, Fr Juan-Carlos Iscara. After the passing of the elderly Fr Ludovic-Marie Barrielle who joined the Society late in life and was a spiritual director for the Ecône seminary, Fr Abdoo's death marked the first Society member ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre to die. Returning from the South Island missions and on his was to the small chapel at the Shaw home in Tawa, near Wellington, a motorist came across the median of the road and hit Fr Abdoo's vehicle head on. It was on one of these trips where Fr Abdoo lost his life.
By this time however, the apostolate was not limited to Whanganui and the priest would travel throughout the North and South Islands, providing Masses. It was in 1986 that the first two priests, the Austrailian Fr Stephen Abdoo, and the Argentine Fr Ruben Gentili came to reside in Whanganui. Archbishop Lefebvre paid a visit and promised a priest as soon as one could be spared to visit more regularly. As Fr Cummins could not come regularly, eventually the faithful asked Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to send priests.
The faithful also had the grace to send young men to the SSPX seminary in Ecône, Switzerland, where two would be ordained priest for the Society. Several small chapels or homes housed the traditional Mass during this time. Hearing about Fr Augustine Cummins, C.Ss.R., who kept the traditional Latin Mass and travelled New Zealand and Australia, they invited him to Wanganui. While the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s were introducing changes in the Church, tehse prayed as part of of a Rosary group. The late Alida Peek and Elizabeth Hubers, with Pat Grace, Colin Smith and Jon and Betty Hos were among the original faithful in Whanganui. The old St Anthony's buildings, except the church were deemed, according to one historian “so woefully below standard that they were unlikely to be accepted for integration." They posed an earthquake risk also and were unsuitable for school use, so were razed.
Pupils began attending St Marcellin school about one kilometer away, and next to the present day SSPX priory. The school closed in 1983 due to a declining roll and the state integration programme for Catholic schools. When the primary school was founded in 1925, 75 pupils were enrolled and three sisters from Sacred Heart Convent on St John’s Hill came to give instruction. The hall finally got its sole status as a church in 1930 when a small house was purchased and converted into classrooms Friday afternoon they were moved out to be replaced with the seats for Mass. Mass was offered by the parish priest who would come the 3 kilometers from the centre of town each Sunday. A hall was built atop a sandhill ridge on York Street which was to serve as a temporary chapel and a school hall. The Ross & Beckett builders completed the hall at a cost of NZ£3,734 (NZ$367,000 in the 2019 equivalent). The hall doubled church and school. St Anthony’s Parish was established in the Gonville suburb of Whanganui when it was a burgeoning town of 24,000-the fifth largest city in New Zealand at the time.
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