Owen Snedden

Bishop Owen Noel Snedden
Personal details
Born	(1917-12-11)11 December 1917 Auckland New Zealand
Died	(1981-04-17)17 April 1981 Wellington New Zealand

Owen Noel Snedden (1962-1981) was the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand (1962-1981).

Early life

Snedden was born in Auckland on 11 December 1917. He studied for the priesthood at Holy Cross College, Mosgiel and Propaganda College in Rome. He was ordained a priest of the Auckland Diocese in Rome on 24 February 1941.

War-time Rome

Because he was still studying in Rome in 1940 when Italy declared War on Britan and France, Snedden could not return to New Zealand and had to stay in Rome. After his ordination he completed his doctorate in theology with a thesis on St John Fisher At the same time he became an announcer for Vatican Radio, engaged particularly to broadcast weekly lists of Australian and New Zealand prisoners of war. Although the priests were not identified, one frequent listenr to the broadcasts concluded that the reader must be a New Zealander because Maori names were pronounced with "such clarity and precision". Unofficially, code-named "Horace" along with John Flanagan (another Auckland priest in the same situation as himslef), he became involved with an underground movement, finding safe houses, medicines and food supplies for escaped prisoners of war who were hiding in the environs of Rome. In mid-1943 (after the fall of Mussolini and the German occupation of Rome) such activities became much more hazardous under Gestapo surveillance and also risked compromising the neutrality of Vatican City. When the Allies liberated Rome in June 1944. When the Allies liberated Rome in June 1944 these exploits came to light and in time both priests were decorated [Order of the British Empire|MBE]] by King George VI. As New Zealand servicemen and women found their way to the city the two acted as guides and on occasions helped visitors arrange audiences with Pope Pius XI. Among these notables wwere Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Lieutenant-General Bernard Fryberg, then commanding the New Zealand Division. The latter commissioned them as military chaplains and they were repatriated on a troop ship early in 1945 before the War in Europe ceased.

Auckland priest

In Auckland, Snedden was appointed to the staff of St Patrick's Cathedral and became assistant to Peter McKeefry, the editor of the newspaper, Zealandia. In 1948, on the appointment of McKeefry as Archbishop of Wellington, Snedden became the editor and held the position until he too was transferred to Wellington. In Auckland he also fulfilled the function of radio commentator accompanying the broadacst of Catholic Liturgical events. On 23 May 1962, Snedden was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Wellington and Titular Bishop of Achelous. He was ordained Bishop on 22 August 1962.

Vatican Council

Snedden attended the the final three sessions of Vatican II Council beginning with the second session which commenced on 29 September 1963. Snedden was quite moved by his initial experience of the Council, lining up as one of such a large gathering of bishops representing a universal church. The "Italian phrase molto comosso [profoundly affected] was the only way he could sum up his feelings". During the session Snedden was appointed to a committtee planning common liturgical texts for all the English-speaking world. This continued in the subsequent council sessions and eventually he was appointed to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. After the Council in the late 19603 and into the 1970s Snedden, with the help Dom Joachim Murphy, the Abbot of the Trappist Monastery at Kopua, and his team of priests, painstakingly criticised and commented on draft English translations of various liturgical books as they were translated from Latin.]]

Wellington

Archbishop McKeefry died on 18 November 1973. Snedden, as Vicar Capitular, preched the panagyric at the archbishop's funeral. "Snedden would have been a popular replacement, but during his eleven years as auxiliary bishop he had experienced indifferent health" and Reginald Delargey was appointed instead." On 28 of October Snedden was appointed Bishop of the New Zealand Military ordinariate. However he was also passed over on the death of Cardinal Delargey who was replaced by Thomas Stafford Williams as archbishop.

Death

Snedden died on Good Friday, 17 April 1981. He was aged 63." He had been the Vicar Capitular administering the archdiocese after the deaths of the two archbishops who predeceased him Cardinal McKeefry and Cardinal Delargey. During the second of these interregnums, in August 1978, Snedden signed the integration agreements for the first Catholic Schools in New Zealand, Cardinal McKeefry School, Wilton and St Bernard's School Brooklyn, to be integrated into the State education system under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975.

See also

• Catholic Hierarchy website: Bishop Owen Noel Snedden

References

• O'Meeghan SM, Michael (2003). Steadfast in hope: The Story of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington 1850-2000. Wellington: Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)