21 Facts About Peter McKeefry

Peter Thomas Bertram McKeefry was the third archbishop of Wellington and metropolitan of New Zealand and its first cardinal.

Peter McKeefry began training for the priesthood in 1916 at Holy Cross College, Mosgiel.

Peter McKeefry was ordained a priest on 3 April 1926 at the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano.

Peter McKeefry initially served as a curate at the cathedral in Auckland.

Peter McKeefry became secretary to Bishop Henry Cleary, whom he assisted with the diocesan newspaper the Month.

Peter McKeefry played an important role in organising the 1938 celebrations to mark the centenary of Bishop Pompallier's arrival in New Zealand.

Editorially, Peter McKeefry concentrated on the need to apply Catholic ideals to contemporary society.

On 12 June 1947 Peter McKeefry was appointed titular bishop of Dercos and coadjutor archbishop of Wellington.

Peter McKeefry was consecrated in St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland, on 19 October 1947 by Cardinal Norman Gilroy, Archbishop of Sydney, whom McKeefry had known as a fellow student in Rome.

When O'Shea died on 9 May 1954 Peter McKeefry was named the fourth bishop and third Archbishop of Wellington.

Peter McKeefry invited the Cistercians to the Archdiocese and assisted them to establish Southern Star Abbey in Hawkes Bay.

In 1960 Peter McKeefry had been appointed to the Central Preparatory Commission, which supervised the drafting of documents for the forthcoming Second Vatican Council.

Peter McKeefry had no sympathy for proposals to introduce vernacular languages into the liturgy.

Peter McKeefry did not attend the council's second session the following year, although he returned to Rome for the 1964 and 1965 sessions, which he found rather tedious.

Peter McKeefry was largely responsible for liturgical matters including the editing of translations of liturgical books into English, in which undertaking he was helped by the Abbot and monks of Southern Star Abbey, Kopua.

On 28 April 1969 Peter McKeefry was proclaimed by Pope Paul VI a Cardinal-Priest of Immacolata al Tiburtino.

Peter McKeefry was the first New Zealand cardinal, a recognition by the Vatican of the maturity of the church in New Zealand and of its role in the South Pacific, as well as reflecting Paul VI's policy of making the College of Cardinals more international.

Peter McKeefry was capable of forceful action when required: walking home late one night in Auckland, he buttoned his overcoat over his clerical collar and intervened decisively in an altercation between a lone policeman and three assailants in an unlit alley.

Peter McKeefry's writing as a journalist was informed by listening to late-night news broadcasts on shortwave radio.

On 18 November 1973, while making arrangements by telephone at the presbytery for the accommodation of a convalescent priest whom he had just visited, Peter McKeefry died suddenly, a cigarette smouldering between his fingers.

Peter McKeefry was buried in Karori cemetery after a funeral attended by numerous civic and ecclesiastical dignitaries and amidst copious tributes from within and beyond his own church.