OBITUARY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 310, 11 October 1943, Page 2

OBITUARY.

RT. REV. BISHOP BRODIE. SERVICES TO CATHOLIC CHURCH (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The Right Rev. Matthew J. Brodie, D.D., Catholic Bishop of Christchurch died to-day. Bishop Brodie was horn at Auckland in 1872, and was educated at the Marist Brothers’ School, Auckland, and St. Joseph’s, Hunters Hill, Syd* ney. He entered St. Patrick’s College Manly, and there studied philosophy and theology, and was ordained ‘by Bishop Lenihan in Auckland, in 1896. During 20 years of parish work he was stationed at St. Benedict’s, Auckland, as assistant priest, at Waihi, Puhoi and Parnell as parish priest, and at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as Administrator. He was Vicar-General of the Auckland Diocese from 1908 to 1916. In 1912 he was made Domestic Prelate and was appointed Bishop of Christchurch in 1916. The late Cardinal Ceretti, then Apostolic Delegate, consecrated Bishop Brodie in the Christchurch Cathedral in 1916.

The first Carmelite nuns to come to New Zealand were introduced by Bishop Brodie to the Christchurch diocese. Bishop Brodie has also been responsible for large extensions to Mount, Magdala, Lewisham Hospital, Nazareth House and the Middleton Boys’ Farm, the opening of the White Orphanage, the new St. Bede’s College, at Papanui, and the uniting of all the Sisters of Mercy in the diocese into one body. At the time of his jubilee Bishop Brodie was made by the Pope a bishop assistant on the Papal throne, a member of the Papal household and a Papal Count, in recognition of his services to the Church. Shortly before his death he received the special blessing of the Pope. He had been ill for some time.