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3 unusual facts about Owen Snedden


Owen Snedden

John Flanagan (another Auckland priest in the same situation as Snedden) became announcers for Vatican Radio, engaged particularly to broadcast weekly lists of Australian and New Zealand prisoners of war.

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.

During this interregnum, 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 - both in the Wellington Archdiocese), to be integrated into the State education system under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975.


Brian Ashby

Ashby was consecrated Bishop at the age of 41 (one of the youngest bishops to take office) on 5 August 1964 in Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch by Archbishop McKeefry of Wellington and the co-consecrators Archbishop Liston of Auckland and Bishop Snedden (Auxiliary Bishop of Wellington).


see also