Owen Noel Snedden, MBE (15 December 1917 – 17 April 1981) was Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand (from 1962 to 1981).
[1] He was still studying in Rome in 1940 when Italy declared war on France and the UK, and while offered the opportunity to return to New Zealand, he, and his great friend Fr.
Although the priests were not identified, one frequent listener to the broadcasts concluded that the readers must be New Zealanders because Māori names were pronounced with "such clarity and precision".
[2] Unofficially, code-named "Horace", Snedden, along with Flanagan (code-named "Fanny"), also became involved with an underground movement led by an Irish priest in the Vatican Secretariat of State, Hugh O'Flaherty,[3] 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.
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 XII.
[4] In Auckland, Snedden was appointed to the staff of St Patrick's Cathedral and became assistant to Peter McKeefry, editor of Zealandia.
"Snedden would have been a popular replacement, but during his eleven years as auxiliary bishop he had experienced indifferent health"[10] and he excluded himself from appointment (as he also did later).