Zealandia was a New Zealand tabloid newspaper owned, and published weekly for 55 years, by the Catholic Bishop of Auckland.
Zealandia was closely controlled by its founder and owner, Archbishop Liston, who did not attend the Vatican Council and expected his authoritarian management style to continue into the late 1960s.
These views were reflected in his first editorial page where he dismissed talk of the Rights of the Press as "so much cant and claptrap", and urged readers to "think of Zealandia" as "simply an unusual kind of parish and yourself as its parishioners".
[8] Reports in Zealandia, under Meuli, attempted to describe Murray's assignment to parish duties as "ordinary clerical change".
[11] Catholic university students, led by Brian Lythe, organised a "Pray-in" at St Patrick's Cathedral to protest at Murray's dismissal.
[10][12] One of the departing staff (Pat McCarthy) spent his two weeks' notice instructing Meuli (who had no experience in journalism) in the mechanics of production.
Paradoxically, because of the absence of informed Catholic staff, the newspaper began, amidst the prevailing conservative editorial outlook, to address lively social issues outside the church.
[15] Archbishop Liston submitted his resignation to the Pope at the age of 88 in December 1969, on the 40th anniversary of his succession as Bishop of Auckland.
He stepped down in early 1970 and was replaced by his auxiliary bishop, Reginald John Delargey who on 27 May 1971 announced the appointment of a new editor for the newspaper, Pat Booth.