Bishop John J. Snyder, who led the Diocese of St. Augustine for more than 20 years, died Friday. He was 93.

Snyder also led the 17-county diocese in Northeast Florida during a time when the number of Catholics more than doubled. New perishes and new schools, including one school in Jacksonville that bears his name, were built under his watch. Bishop Snyder oversaw the construction of five retirement homes for low-income elderly, a nursing home and a retirement home for priests, where he spent his last years.

According to a statement from Diocese of St. Augustine spokeswoman Kathleen Bagg, he was best known as a people’s bishop — described as gregarious, approachable and interested in the lives of ordinary people. He empowered laypeople, especially women, to assume leadership roles in their parishes and diocesan ministries, according to Bagg.

“I will measure the effectiveness of my leadership by the ability and willingness of this local church to call forth, develop and utilize the gifts and talents not only of its priests and religious but all its people,” he said on Dec. 5, 1979, when he was installed as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine.

He also reached out to groups that did not feel welcomed in the church — the divorced, the disabled, gays and lesbians, inmates, farmworkers, refugees and immigrants, according to Bagg. He established the Ministry for Persons with Disabilities that runs summer camps for disabled children and adults, who come from all over the country to attend.

On the state level, he advocated for prison reform and spoke out against the death penalty. He was active in prison ministry and after his retirement in 2000 ministered to inmates on Death Row.

Bishop Snyder was a New Yorker, born Oct. 25, 1925, into an Irish Catholic family. He grew up in Queens and Flushing.

He was the second of three sons. The eldest, Eugene, died in World War II; the younger, James, worked with inner-city children who died of cancer in 1997. They had an adopted sister, Nancy who passed away in 2017.

Bishop Snyder said he grew up playing baseball, basketball, tennis, and golf, but baseball was a special love. In his wallet, he carried an old photo of his school team, the Andreans. He was a lifelong fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. It’s no mistake that the cardinal is the mascot of Bishop John J. Snyder High School, where he was a regular at football games.

He studied at the Seminary of Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y., and was ordained a priest on June 9, 1951.

A Reception of the Body will be at 4 p.m. Oct. 1 at Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine followed by Vespers at 7 p.m. On Oct. 2, a Funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. at Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine followed by a Committal at 2 p.m. at San Lorenzo Catholic Cemetery.