 | This article'sfactual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2017) |
 Catholic Church in Australia | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | National polity |
| Classification | Catholic |
| Orientation | Latin |
| Scripture | Bible |
| Theology | Catholic theology |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Governance | Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference |
| Pope | Leo XIV |
| President of theACBC | Timothy Costelloe SDB |
| Region | Australia |
| Language | English,Latin |
| Origin | 1788 Sydney,New South Wales |
| Number of followers | 5,886,980 (2021) |
| Official website | catholic.org.au |
TheCatholic Church in Australia is part of the worldwideCatholic Church under the spiritual and administrative leadership of theHoly See. From origins as a suppressed, mainly Irish minority in early colonial times, the church has grown to be the largest Christian denomination in Australia, with a culturally diverse membership of around 5,075,907 people, representing about 20% of the overall population of Australia according to the 2021ABS Census data.[1]
The church is the largest non-government provider of welfare and education services in Australia.[2]Catholic Social Services Australia aids some 450,000 people annually, while theSt Vincent de Paul Society's 40,000 members form the largest volunteer welfare network in the country. In 2016, the church had some 760,000 students in more than 1,700 schools.[3][4][5]
The church in Australia has five provinces: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It has35 dioceses, comprising geographic areas as well as the military diocese and dioceses for theChaldean,Maronite,Melkite, Syro-Malabar (St Thomas Christians), andUkrainianRites.[6] The national assembly of bishops is theAustralian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC).[7] There are a further 175Catholic religious orders operating in Australia, affiliated under Catholic Religious Australia.[6][7] One Australian has been recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church:Mary MacKillop, who co-founded theSisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart ("Josephite") religious institute in the 19th century.[8]
Since the 1980s, Catholicism has been the largest Christian denomination in Australia, constituting around one-quarter of the overall population and becoming slightly larger than theAnglican andUniting churches combined. Up until the2016 census, adherents had been recorded as growing both numerically and as a percentage of the population; however, the 2016 census found a fall in both overall numbers and the percentage of Catholics as a proportion of Australian residents, with 5,291,839 Australian Catholics (around 22.6% of the population) in 2016, down from 5,439,257 in the2011 census (25.3% of the population).[10][11] This was repeated again in 2021, with the numbers dropping to 5,075,907 people, representing about 20% of the overall population of Australia according to the 2021 ABS Census data.[1]
Until the1986 census, Australia's most populous Christian church was theAnglican Church of Australia. Since then, Catholics have outnumbered Anglicans by an increasing margin. The change is partly explained by changes inimmigration patterns.[12][13] Before theSecond World War, the majority of immigrants to Australia came from theUnited Kingdom and most Catholic immigrants came fromIreland. After the war, Australia's immigration diversified, and more than 6.5 million migrants arrived in the following 60 years, including more than a million Catholics fromItaly,Malta,Lebanon, theNetherlands,Germany,Poland,Croatia andHungary.[13]
At the 2016 Census, the ancestries with which Australian Catholics most identified were English (1.49 million), Australian (1.12 million), Irish (577,000), Italian (567,000) and Filipino (181,000).
Despite a growing population of Catholics, weeklyMass attendance has declined from an estimated 74% in the mid-1950s to around 14% in 2006.[14][15]
There are sevenarchdioceses and 32dioceses, with an estimated 3,000priests and 9,000 men and women ininstitutes of consecrated life andsocieties of apostolic life, including six dioceses that cover the whole country: one each for those who belong to the Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite, Syro-Malabar and Ukrainian rites and one for those serving in theAustralian Defence Forces. There is also apersonal ordinariate for former Anglicans, which has a similar status to a diocese.[16][17]
| State/Territory[18] | % 2016 | % 2011 | % 2006 | % 2001 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Capital Territory | 22.3 | 26.1 | 28.0 | 29.1 |
| New South Wales | 24.7 | 27.5 | 28.2 | 28.9 |
| Northern Territory | 19.9 | 21.6 | 21.1 | 22.2 |
| Queensland | 21.7 | 23.8 | 24.0 | 24.8 |
| South Australia | 18.0 | 19.9 | 20.2 | 20.8 |
| Tasmania | 15.6 | 17.9 | 18.4 | 19.3 |
| Total | 22.6 | 25.3 | 25.8 | 26.6 |
| Victoria | 23.2 | 26.7 | 27.5 | 28.4 |
| Western Australia | 21.4 | 23.6 | 23.7 | 24.7 |
Among the first Catholics known to have sighted Australia were the crew of a Spanish expedition of 1605–6. In 1606, the expedition's leader,Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, landed in theNew Hebrides believing it to be the fabled southern continent. He named the landAustrialis del Espiritu Santo ("Southern Land of the Holy Spirit").[19][20] Later that year, his deputyLuís Vaz de Torres sailed through theTorres Strait between Australia and New Guinea.[21]
The permanent presence of Catholicism in Australia came rather with the arrival of theFirst Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. One-tenth of all the convicts who came to Australia on the First Fleet were Catholic, and at least half of them were born in Ireland.[13] A small proportion of British marines were also Catholic.
Just as the British were setting up the new colony, French captainJean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse arrived offBotany Bay with two ships.[22][23][24] La Pérouse was 6 weeks in Botany Bay, where the French, besides other things, held Catholic Masses.[25] The crew conducted the first Catholic burial, that of FatherLouis Receveur, a Franciscan friar who died while the ships were at anchor at Botany Bay.[26]
Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland, so the authorities were suspicious of Catholicism for the first three decades of settlement.[27]
Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Anglicans.[28] The first Catholic priests arrived in Australia as convicts in 1800 – James Harold,[29]James Dixon and Peter O'Neill, who had been convicted for "complicity" in the Irish1798 Rebellion. Fr Dixon was conditionally emancipated and permitted to celebrate Mass.[30] On 15 May 1803, in vestments made from curtains and with a chalice made of tin, he conducted the first Catholic Mass in "New South Wales".[28] The Irish-ledCastle Hill Rebellion of 1804 alarmed the British authorities and Dixon's permission to celebrate Mass was revoked. FrJeremiah O'Flynn,[31] an IrishCistercian monk, was appointed asPrefect Apostolic ofNew Holland and set out from Britain for the colony, uninvited. Watched by authorities, O'Flynn secretly performed priestly duties before being arrested and deported to London. Reaction to the affair in Britain led to two further priests being allowed to travel to the colony in 1820 —John Joseph Therry andPhilip Conolly.[27] The foundation stone for the firstSt Mary's Church was laid on 29 October 1821 by GovernorLachlan Macquarie.
The absence of a Catholic mission in Australia before 1818 reflected the legal disabilities of Catholics in Britain and the difficult position of Ireland within the British Empire. The government therefore endorsed the EnglishBenedictine monks to lead the early church in the colony.[32] The ReverendWilliam Bernard Ullathorne (1806–1889) was instrumental in influencingPope Gregory XVI to establish the hierarchy in Australia. Ullathorne was in Australia from 1833 to 1836 as vicar-general to BishopWilliam Morris ofMauritius, whose jurisdiction extended over the Australian missions.
TheChurch of England was disestablished in the colony of New South Wales by theChurch Act of 1836, which also provided equal funding of Protestant and Catholic churches.[33] Drafted by the Catholic attorney-generalJohn Plunkett, the act established legal equality for Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists. Nevertheless, social attitudes were slow to change. A laywoman,Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877), faced discouragements and anti-Catholic feeling when she sought to establish a migrant women's shelter. She worked for women's welfare in the colonies in the 1840s, though her humanitarian efforts later won her fame in England and great influence in achieving support for families in the colony.[34]
The church's most prominent early leader wasJohn Bede Polding, aBenedictine monk who was Sydney's first bishop (and then archbishop) from 1835 to 1877. Polding requested a community of nuns be sent to the colony and five IrishSisters of Charity arrived in 1838. While tensions arose between the English Benedictine hierarchy and the Irish,Ignatian-tradition religious institute from the start, the sisters set about pastoral care in a women's prison and began visiting hospitals and schools and establishing employment for convict women. In 1847, two sisters transferred toHobart and established a school.[35] The sisters went on to establish hospitals in four of the eastern states, beginning withSt Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in 1857 as a free hospital for all people, but especially for the poor.[36]
At Polding's request, theChristian Brothers arrived in Sydney in 1843 to assist in schools. Again jurisdictional tensions arose and the brothers returned to Ireland. In 1857, Polding founded an Australianreligious institute in the Benedictine tradition – theSisters of the Good Samaritan – to work in education and social work.[37] While Polding was in office, construction began on the ambitiousGothic Revival designs forSt Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, and the final St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
In 1845, Polding established the Australian Holy Catholic Guild of Saints Mary and Joseph. Some parishes have memorials dedicated to deceased members and friends. One such is at St Patrick's Boorowa, New South Wales.[38] Examples of the Guild's reporting to members and election of office bearers can be seen in the Freeman's Journal.[39] In 1848, they met under St Patrick's Church at the intersection of George and Hunter streets and had 250 members at that time.[40] Records of the association, from 1845 to 1996, are held at the NSW State Library and this includes a copy of the constitution of the guild.[41]
Establishing themselves first atSevenhill, in the newly established colony ofSouth Australia in 1848, theJesuits were the first religious order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria,Queensland and theNorthern Territory – Austrian Jesuits established themselves in the south and north and Irish in the east. Thegoldrush saw an increase in the population and prosperity of the colonies and called for an increase in the number ofepiscopal sees. When gold was discovered in late 1851, there were an estimated 9,000 Catholics in the Colony of Victoria, increasing to 100,000 by the time the Jesuits arrived 14 years later. While the Austrian priests traversed the Outback on horseback to found missions and schools, the Irish priests arrived in the east in 1860 and had by 1880 established the major schools ofXavier College in Melbourne and in SydneySt Aloysius' College andSaint Ignatius' College,Riverview – which each survive to the present.[42]
During 1869 and 1870, some Australian-based clergy attended the first Vatican Council in Rome.
Despite anti-Irish lobbying by English Catholic bishops and the British government, Irish clericPatrick Francis Moran won the favour ofPope Leo XIII and was appointed Archbishop of Sydney in 1884, arriving in New South Wales on 8 September. A prominent figure in Australian Catholic history, he became Australia's first cardinal the following year after being summoned back to Rome, and presided over Plenary Councils of Australasia in 1885, 1895 and 1905 which laid the foundations for Church structure in the 20th century.[43] The Australian colonies had hitherto relied heavily on immigrant clergy. In 1889, Moran foundedSt Patrick's College, Manly, intended to provide priests for all the colonies. Moran believed that Catholics' political and civil rights were threatened in Australia and, in 1896, saw deliberate discrimination in a situation where "no office of first, or even second, rate importance is held by a Catholic".[44]
In Rome in 1884, Moran had met the VenerableMary Potter and invited her to send a group of her newly establishedLittle Company of Mary sisters to Australia in order to establish a local congregation. Six pioneering sisters arrived in Sydney in November 1885, commencing work caring for the sick and dying. Establishing a convent at Lewishman, they had nearly fifty members within just five years. In 1889 they opened a small hospital at Lewisham. Under the leadership ofMother Mary Xavier Lynch from 1899, the hospital would grow to be one of Sydney's leading general hospitals and nursing schools.[45] Mother Mary Xavier established a new hospital at Adelaide in 1900 andWagga Wagga in 1926, and despatched sisters to found hospitals in New Zealand and South Africa.[45] In 1922 she became the order's first provincial of Australasia, and is remembered as one of Australia's most noted hospital and nursing administrators.[46]
The Catholic Church also became involved in mission work among the Aboriginal people of Australia during the 19th century as Europeans came to control much of the continent.[47] According to Aboriginal anthropologistKathleen Butler-McIlwraith, there were many occasions when the Catholic Church attempted to advocate for Aboriginal rights, but the missionaries were also "functionaries of theProtection and Assimilation policies" of the government and so "directly contributed to the current disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians".[48][49] The missionaries themselves argued that they protected children from dysfunctional aspects of indigenous culture.[50]
With the withdrawal of state aid for church schools around 1880, the Catholic Church, unlike other Australian churches, put great energy and resources into creating a comprehensive alternative system of education. It was largely staffed by sisters, brothers and priests of religious institutes, such as the Christian Brothers (who had returned to Australia in 1868); theSisters of Mercy (who had arrived in Perth in 1846);Marist Brothers, who came from France in 1872; and theSisters of St Joseph, founded in Australia by Mary MacKillop and FrJulian Tenison Woods in 1867.[51][52][53] MacKillop travelled throughoutAustralasia and established schools, convents and charitable institutions but came into conflict with those bishops who preferred diocesan control of the institute rather than central control from Adelaide by the Josephite religious institute. MacKillop administered the Josephites as a national religious institute at a time when Australia was divided among individually governed colonies. She is today the most revered of Australian Catholics,beatified byPope John Paul II in 1995 andcanonised byBenedict XVI in 2010.[54] Catholic schools flourished in Australia and by 1900 there were 115 Christian Brothers teaching in Australia. By 1910 there were 5000religious sisters teaching in schools.[27]
Section 116 of the Australian Constitution of 1901 to some extent prevented the new federal parliament from interfering withfreedom of religion and ensured aseparation of church and state throughout Australia. Australia's first Catholic cardinal,Patrick Francis Moran (1830–1911), had been a proponent ofAustralian Federation but in 1901 he refused to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Commonwealth of Australia because precedence was given to the Church of England. He was criticised inThe Bulletin for speaking against racist immigration laws and he alarmed Catholic conservatives by supportingTrade Unionism and the newly formedAustralian Labor Party.[55]
The Catholic Church was rooted in the working class Irish communities. Moran, the Archbishop of Sydney from 1884 to 1911, believed that Catholicism would flourish with the emergence of the new nation through Federation in 1901, provided that his people rejected "contamination" from foreign influences such as anarchism, socialism, modernism and secularism. Moran distinguished between European socialism as an atheistic movement and those Australians calling themselves "socialists"; he approved of the objectives of the latter while feeling that the European model was not a real danger in Australia. Moran's outlook reflected his wholehearted acceptance of Australian democracy and his belief in the country as different and freer than the old societies from which its people had come.[56] Moran thus welcomed the Labor Party and the Catholic Church stood with it in opposing conscription in the referendums of 1916 and 1917.[57] The hierarchy had close ties to Rome, which encouraged the bishops to support the British Empire and emphasize Marian piety.[58]
Another Irish cleric, ArchbishopDaniel Mannix (1864–1963) of Melbourne, was a controversial voice againstconscription duringWorld War I and againstBritish Empire policy in Ireland. He was also a fervent critic of contraception. In 1920, theRoyal Navy prevented him landing in his Irish homeland.[59] In the Melbourne St Patrick's day parade of 1920, Archbishop Mannix participated with fourteen Victoria Cross recipients.[60] Yet despite early 20th century sectarian feeling, Australia elected its first Catholic prime minister,James Scullin, of the Australian Labor Party in 1929 – decades before the Protestant majority of theUnited States would electJohn F. Kennedy as its first Catholic president.[61] His successor,Joseph Lyons, a devout Irish Catholic, split from Labor to form the fiscally conservativeUnited Australia Party – predecessor to the modernLiberal Party of Australia. His wife, DameEnid Lyons, a Catholic convert, became the first female member of theAustralian House of Representatives and later first female member of cabinet in theMenzies Government.[62] With the place of Catholics in the British Empire still complicated by the recentIrish War of Independence and centuries of imperial rivalry with Catholic European nations, as prime minister, Lyons travelled to London in 1935 for the silver jubilee celebrations ofKing George V and faced anti-Catholic demonstrations in Edinburgh, then visited his ancestral homeland of Ireland and also had an audience with the Pope in Rome.[63]
The Australian congregation known as Our Lady's Nurses for the Poor[64] was founded by Melbourne-born mysticEileen O'Connor and FrTed McGrath in a rented home at Coogee in 1913. A deeply religious youth, O'Connor had suffered a damaged spine when she was three years old and lived in a wheelchair with a painful disability. McGrath, the parish priest of Coogee, found accommodation for her widowed mother and family and was impressed by her courage. O'Connor told McGrath that she had experienced a visitation from the Virgin Mary, and McGrath shared with her his hope to establish a congregation of nurses to serve the poor. Eventually, a group of seven laywomen gathered around O'Connor and elected her as their first superior. Directed by the largely bed-ridden O'Connor, they visited the sick poor and nursed the frail aged. O'Connor died in 1921 of chronic tuberculosis of the spine and exhaustion. She was 28.[65] Initially a group of laywomen, Our Lady's Nurses for the Poor later formed themselves into a religious community of sisters under vows and their work continues in Sydney, Newcastle and Macquarie Fields. In 2018, Australia's bishops voted to initiate her cause for sainthood and the Holy See granted her the titleServant of God.[66]
In October 1916, the Catholic Women's Social Guild (now Catholic Women's League) was formed in Fitzroy, Victoria, andMary Glowrey became the inaugural president.[67] Glowrey was one of the first women to study medicine at Melbourne University. She later went to India to become a missionary nun, founding the largest non-government healthcare system in that country. She was accorded the title Servant of God in 2013 and her cause for sainthood is underway.[68]
The Australian Army Chaplains Department was promulgated in 1913, and 86 Catholic chaplains went on to serve in the army during World War One. As well as conducting church parades and religious services, chaplains organised activities to improve the morale and welfare of the troops. Fr John Fahey from Perth was the longest-serving front-line chaplain of the conflict. Assigned to the 11th battalion, he was the first chaplain ashore on Gallipoli, after disregarding orders to stay on the ship.[69]
During the Second World War, the Australian-administeredTerritory of New Guinea was invaded by Japanese forces. Some 333Martyrs of New Guinea are remembered from all denominations during WW2, including 197 Catholics.[70] OnRabaul, Australians and Europeans found refuge at the Vunapope Catholic Mission, until the Japanese overwhelmed the island and took them prisoner in 1942. The local Bishop Leo Scharmach, a Pole, convinced the Japanese that he was German and to spare the internees. A group of indigenousDaughters of Mary Immaculate (FMI Sisters) then refused to give up their faith or abandon the Australians and are credited with keeping hundreds of internees alive for three and half years by growing food and delivering it to them over gruelling distances. Some of the Sisters were tortured by the Japanese and gave evidence during war crimes trials after the war.[71] Indigenous Rabaul manPeter To Rot found himself in charge of the mission at Rakunai after the internment of the Europeans. He took on their work of teaching the faith, presiding over baptisms, prayer and marriages and caring for the sick and POWs. When the Japanese outlawed these practises, he continued them in secret, was exposed by a collaborator and sent to a labour camp where he was executed. Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr in 1993 and beatified him in 1995.[72]
Until about 1950, the Catholic Church in Australia was overwhelmingly Irish in its ethos. Most Catholics were descendants of Irish immigrants and the church was mostly led by Irish-born priests and bishops.[73] A number of rural areas had high proportions of Irish and a strongly Catholic culture.[74] From 1950 the ethnic composition of the church began to change, with the assimilation of Irish Australians and the arrival of Eastern EuropeanDisplaced Persons from 1948[75] and more than one million Catholics from countries such as Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, Croatia and Hungary, and later Filipinos, Vietnamese, Lebanese and Poles around the 1980s. There are now also strong Chinese, Korean and Hispanic Catholic communities.[13][76]
For a long time, Irish-Australians had a close political association with the Labor Party.[77] The changing ethnic composition of Australian Catholicism and shifting political allegiances of Australian Catholics saw Catholic laymanB. A. Santamaria, the son of Italian immigrants, lead a movement of working class Catholics againstCommunism in Australia and the formation of hisDemocratic Labor Party (DLP) in 1955. The DLP was formed over concerns of Communist influence over the trade unions and Labor Party. The movement was not approved by theVatican, but it siphoned a proportion of the Catholic vote away from the Labor Party, contributing to the success of the newly formed Liberal Party ofRobert Menzies, which held power from 1949 to 1972, which, in return for DLP preferences, secured state aid for Catholic schools in Australia in 1963.[78] Along with a sharp decline in sectarianism in post-1960s Australia, sectarian loyalty to political parties has diminished and Catholics have been well represented within the conservative Liberal andNational parties.Brendan Nelson became the first Catholic to lead the Liberal Party in 2007. Former prime minister Tony Abbott is a formerseminarian who won the party leadership after defeating two other Catholic candidates for the post.[79] In 2008,Tim Fischer, a Catholic and former deputy prime minister in theHoward government, was nominated by the Labor prime minister,Kevin Rudd, as the first resident Australianambassador to theHoly See since 1973, when diplomatic relations with the Vatican and Australia were first established.[80]
Since theSecond Vatican Council of the 1960s, the Australian church has experienced a decline in vocations to the religious life, leading to apriest shortage. On the other hand, lay leadership in education and other areas has expanded,[81] and about 20% of Australian school students attend a Catholic school.[5] While the numbers of nuns serving in Australian health facilities declined, the church maintained a strong presence in health care. The Sisters of Charity continued their mission among the sick, opening Australia's firstHIV AIDS ward at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in the 1980s.[82] Declining vocations and increasing complexities in the health care technologies and management saw religious institutes like the Sisters of Charity and Sisters of Mercy amalgamating their efforts and divesting themselves of daily management of hospitals.[83]
Following Vatican II, new styles of ministry were tried by Australian religious. Some rose to national prominence. FrTed Kennedy began one such ministry in Sydney's inner cityRedfern presbytery in 1971 – an area with a large Aboriginal population. Working closely with Catholic Aboriginal laywoman"Mum" Shirl Smith, he developed a theology which held that the poor had special insights into the meaning of Christianity, worked as an advocate for Aboriginal rights and often challenged the civil and church establishment on questions of conscience.[84] In 1989, Jesuit lawyer FrFrank Brennan foundedUniya, a centre for social justice and human rights research, advocacy, education and networking. Uniya focused much of its attention on the plight of refugees, asylum seekers, andIndigenous reconciliation. In 1991, FrChris Riley formedYouth Off The Streets, a community organisation working for young people who are "chronically homeless, drug dependent and recovering from abuse". Originally a food van in Sydney'sKing's Cross, it has grown to be one of the largest youth services in Australia, offering crisis accommodation, residential rehabilitation, clinical services and counselling, outreach programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, specialist Aboriginal services, education and family support.[85] Melbourne priest FatherBob Maguire began parish work in the 1960s, but became a youth media personality in 2004 with the beginning of a series of collaborations with irreverent satiristJohn Safran onSBS TV andTriple J radio.[86][87]
The year 1970 saw the first visit to Australia by a Pope,Paul VI.[88] PopeJohn Paul II was the next Pope to visit Australia in 1986. AtAlice Springs, the Pope made an historic address to indigenous Australians, in which he praised the enduring qualities of Aboriginal culture, lamented the effects of dispossession of and discrimination; called for acknowledgment ofAboriginal land rights and reconciliation in Australia; and said that the church in Australia would not reach its potential until Aboriginal people had made their "contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others".[89]
In 1988, the Archbishop of Sydney, Edward Bede Clancy was created a cardinal and during theAustralian Bicentenary celebrations led the religious ceremonies for the opening ofParliament House, Canberra. Pope John Paul II visited Australia for the second time in 1995, to perform therite ofbeatification for Mary MacKillop, founder of Australia's Josephite Sisters, before a crowd of 250,000.
From the late 1980s,cases of abuse within the Catholic Church and other child care institutions began to be exposed in Australia. In 1996, the church issued a document,Towards Healing, which it described as seeking to "establish a compassionate and just system for dealing with complaints of abuse".[90] In 2001, anapostolic exhortation from Pope John Paul II condemned incidents of sex abuse inOceania.[91] Impetus for theTowards Healing protocols was in part led by BishopGeoffrey Robinson, who would later call for large scale systemic reform of the church globally in his 2007 bookConfronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus.[92] The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference did not endorse the book.Pat Power, theAuxiliary Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn, wrote in 2002 that "the current crisis around sexual abuse is the greatest since the Reformation. At stake is the Church's moral authority, its credibility, its ability to interpret the 'signs of the times' and its capacity to confront the ensuing questions."[citation needed]Pope Benedict XVI officially apologised to victims duringWorld Youth Day 2008 in Sydney and celebrated a Mass with four victims ofclerical sexual abuse in the chapel ofSt Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, and listened to their stories.[93]
In 2001, in Rome, Pope John Paul II apologised to Aboriginal and other indigenous people in Oceania for past injustices by the church: "Aware of the shameful injustices done to indigenous peoples in Oceania, the Synod Fathers apologised unreservedly for the part played in these by members of the church, especially where children were forcibly separated from their families." Church leaders in Australia called on the Australian government to offer a similar apology.[94]
In 2001,George Pell became the eighth Archbishop of Sydney and, in 2003, became a cardinal. Pell supported Sydney's bid to host World Youth Day 2008. In July 2008, Sydney hosted the massive youth festival led by Pope Benedict XVI.[95][96] Around 500,000 welcomed the pope to Sydney and 270,000 watched theStations of the Cross. More than 300,000 pilgrims camped out overnight in preparation for the final Mass,[97] where final attendance was between 300,000 and 400,000 people.[98][99][100]
In February 2010, Pope Benedict XVI announced that Mary MacKillop would be recognised as the first Australiansaint of the Catholic Church.[101] She was canonised on 17 October 2010 during a public ceremony inSt Peter's Square. An estimated 8,000 Australians were present in theVatican City to witness the ceremony.[102] TheVatican Museum held an exhibition ofAboriginal art to honour the occasion titled "Rituals of Life".[103] The exhibition contained 300 artefacts which were on display for the first time since 1925.[104]
In the late 20th and early 21st century, Catholicism in Australia has been growing numerically, while remaining relatively stable as a proportion of the population and facing a long-term decline in numbers of people following vocations to the religious life. In 2016, the Catholic education sector ran 1,738 schools, accounting for some 20.2% of Australian school students.[5][105] There were also two Catholic universities –University of Notre Dame Australia and theAustralian Catholic University.Catholic Social Services Australia, the church's peak national body for social services, had 52 member organisations providing services to hundreds of thousands of people each year.[106]Catholic Health Australia was the largest non-government provider grouping of health, community, and aged care services.[107]
The church was among the secular and religious institutions examined at the 2013-2017Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which reported that abuse cases by Catholic personnel had peaked in the 1970s, with around 4400 cases and alleged cases over the 6 decades prior to the inquiry. In 2017, there were 5.5 million Australian Catholics.[108][109][110]Gerard Henderson stated that statistics presented to the Royal Commission indicated that children were safer in a Catholic religious institution in Australia during the years studied than in any other religious institution (state institutions were not studied, so a statistical comparison could not be made).[111]
Catholic people and charitable organisations, hospitals and schools have played a prominent role in welfare and education in Australia ever since colonial times[112] when CatholiclaywomanCaroline Chisholm helped single, migrant women and rescued homeless girls in Sydney.[113] In his welcoming address to the Catholic World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, the prime minister,Kevin Rudd, said that Christianity had been a positive influence on Australia: "It was the church that began first schools for the poor, it was the church that began first hospitals for the poor, it was the church that began first refuges for the poor and these great traditions continue for the future".[114]
A number of Catholic organisations are providers ofsocial welfare services (includingresidential aged care and theJob Network) andeducation in Australia. Australia-wide these include:Centacare,CatholicCareCaritas Australia,Jesuit Refugee Service,St Vincent de Paul Society,Youth Off The Streets. Two religious institutes founded in Australia which engaged in welfare and charity work are theSisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and theSisters of the Good Samaritan.[27] Many international Catholic religious institutes also work in welfare, such as theLittle Sisters of the Poor who work in aged care.Catholic Social Services Australia is the peak body for Catholic welfare agencies and has 54 member organisations in metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.[115][116] Members include diocesan-basedCentacare andCatholicCare agencies and those under the stewardship of religious orders.
Catholic Health Australia is the largest non-government provider grouping of health, community and aged care services in Australia. These do not operate for profit and range across the full spectrum of health services, representing about 10% of the health sector and employing 35,000 people.[117]
Religious institutes founded many of Australia's hospitals. IrishSisters of Charity arrived in Sydney in 1838 and establishedSt Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in 1857 as a free hospital for the poor. The Sisters went on to found hospitals, hospices, research institutes and aged care facilities in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.[118] At St Vincent's they trained leading surgeonVictor Chang and opened Australia's firstAIDS clinic.[119] In the 21st century, with more and more lay people involved in management, the sisters began collaborating withSisters of Mercy Hospitals in Melbourne and Sydney. Jointly the group operates four public hospitals, seven private hospitals and 10 aged care facilities.
The EnglishSisters of the Little Company of Mary arrived in 1885 and have since established public and private hospitals, retirement living and residential aged care, community care and comprehensive palliative care in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland (Cairns) and the Northern Territory.[120]
TheLittle Sisters of the Poor, who follow thecharism ofSaint Jeanne Jugan to "offer hospitality to the needy aged", arrived in Melbourne in 1884 and now operate four aged care homes in Australia.[121]
In 1895, Perth's BishopMatthew Gibney sent a request for help to the Sisters of St John of God inWexford, Ireland to care for people suffering fromtyphoid fever during the1890s gold rush. They established a hospital inKalgoorlie in the late 1890s, followed shortly byanother in the Perth suburb ofSubiaco.[122] These services developed intoSt John of God Health Care, which now operates 24 hospitals and facilities acrossWestern Australia,New South Wales,Victoria, andNew Zealand.
By 1833, there were around ten Catholic schools in the Australian colonies.[27] Today one in five Australian students attend Catholic schools.[5] There are over 1700 Catholic schools in Australia with more than 750,000 students enrolled, employing almost 60,000 teachers.[124] Mary MacKillop was a 19th-century Australianreligious sister who founded an educational religious institute, theSisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.[125] Other Catholic religious institutes involved in education in Australia have included:Sisters of Mercy,Marist Brothers, Christian Brothers,Loreto Sisters,Benedictine Sisters andJesuits.
As with other classes of non-government schools in Australia, Catholic schools receive funding from the Commonwealth Government.[126] Church schools range from elite, high cost schools (which generally offer extensive bursary programs for low-income students) to low-fee local schools. Notable schools include the Jesuit colleges ofSt Aloysius andSaint Ignatius' College, Riverview in Sydney,Saint Ignatius' College, Adelaide andXavier College in Melbourne; theMarist BrothersSt Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, theChristian Brothers' High School, Lewisham, theSociety of the Sacred Heart'sRosebay Kincoppal School, theInstitute of the Blessed Virgin Mary'sLoreto Kirribilli, theSisters of Mercy'sMonte Sant' Angelo Mercy College, the Christian Brothers'St Edmund's College, Canberra andAquinas College, Perth – however, the list and range of Catholic primary and secondary schools in Australia is long and diverse and extends throughout metropolitan, regional and remote Australia: seeCatholic Schools in Australia
TheAustralian Catholic University opened in 1991 following the amalgamation of four Catholic tertiary institutions in eastern Australia. These institutions had their origins in the 1800s, when religious institutes became involved in preparing teachers for Catholic schools and nurses for Catholic hospitals.[127] TheUniversity of Notre Dame Australia opened in Western Australia in December 1989 and now has over 9,000 students on three campuses in Fremantle, Sydney and Broome.[128]
Church leaders have often involved themselves in political issues in areas they consider relevant to Christian teachings. In early Colonial times, Catholicism was restricted butChurch of England clergy worked closely with the governors.[129] Early Catholic missionaryWilliam Ullathorne criticised the convict system, publishing a pamphlet,The Horrors of Transportation Briefly Unfolded to the People, in Britain in 1837.[130] Sydney's first archbishop,John Bede Polding, was influential in the preparation of the Australian bishops' pastoral letter on Aboriginal People in 1869 which advocated for Aboriginal rights and dignity.[131]
Australia's first Catholiccardinal,Patrick Francis Moran (1830–1911), was politically active. He was a proponent ofAustralian Federation; he denounced anti-Chinese legislation as "unchristian" and opposedantisemitism. He became an advocate forwomen's suffrage and he stood for election to theAustralasian Federal Convention in 1897, but in 1901 he refused to attend the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia because precedence was given to the Church of England. He alarmed conservatives by supportingtrade unionism and "Australian socialism".[55] ArchbishopDaniel Mannix of Melbourne was a controversial voice againstconscription duringWorld War I and against British policy in Ireland.[59]
Mum (Shirl) Smith, a celebratedRedfern community worker, assisted by theSisters of Charity, worked in the courts and organised prison visitations, medical and social assistance for Aboriginal People.[132] Fr Ted Kennedy of Redfern[84] and Fr Frank Brennan, a Jesuit, have been high-profile Catholic priests engaged in the cause of Aboriginal rights.[133][134][135]
In 1999, CardinalEdward Bede Clancy wrote to the then prime minister,John Howard, urging him to send an armed peacekeeping force toEast Timor to end the violence engulfing that country.[136] In 2006, an Australian Greens senator,Kerry Nettle, called on the health minister,Tony Abbott, to refrain from debating the abortion drugRU486 because he wasCatholic.[137] CardinalGeorge Pell concerned himself publicly with traditional issues of Christian doctrine, such as supportingmarriage and opposingabortion, but also raised questions about government policies such as theWork Choices industrial relations reforms and themandatory detention ofasylum seekers.[138][139]
Australia elected its first Catholic prime minister,James Scullin of theAustralian Labor Party in 1929.[61] He was succeeded byJoseph Lyons of theUnited Australia Party who was prime minister from 1932 to 1939, and remains Australia's longest serving Catholic prime minister. The first woman elected to theHouse of Representatives was his wife,Enid Lyons (United Australia Party), who was a Catholic convert.[140] Australian Catholic women have achieved a number of significant milestones in the history of Australian politics. The first woman to be elected as leader of a state or territory was CatholicRosemary Follett, who won the first ACT election in 1989.[141] The first womanPremier of NSW was Labor'sKristina Keneally, a Catholic with a master's degree in Catholic systemic theology.[142] DameRoma Mitchell, a devout Catholic, served asGovernor of South Australia from 1991 to 1996, the first woman to be appointed governor of an Australian state. Dame Roma had also been a Supreme Court Judge, University Chancellor, Human Rights campaigner and advocate for Aboriginal people. Following her death, the ABC reported "Those who were close to Dame Roma Mitchell say her deep Catholic faith guided every aspect of her life, giving her the strength and ambition to campaign for social change and her philosophy of generosity and kindness".[143]
TheAustralian Labor Party had largely been supported by Catholics until laymanB. A. Santamaria formed theDemocratic Labor Party over concerns ofCommunist influence over the trade union movement in the 1950s.[144] The war-time prime minister, John Curtin (Labor), was raised Catholic.Ben Chifley (Labor) also served as prime minister from 1945 to 1949. In more recent decades, Catholics have led all major parties and served as Prime Ministers and Opposition leader. Labor prime ministersPaul Keating (1991–1996) andKevin Rudd (2007–2010, 2013) were both raised Catholic (though Rudd now identifies as an Anglican).Tim Fischer wasDeputy Prime Minister and leader of theNational Party between 1996 and 1999, was a practising Catholic and later served as the Australian Ambassador to theHoly See between 2008 and 2012.[145]
The threeLiberal Party Leaders of the Opposition between 2007 and 2013 -Brendan Nelson,Malcolm Turnbull andTony Abbott - were all Catholics. Abbott brought the Party to officein 2013 and was succeeded by Turnbull as Prime Minister in 2015. As the connection of the conservative parties to Catholicism has increased in recent decades, so the formerly strong connection between Labor and Catholicism has waned. Nevertheless, since losing office in 2013, the Labor Party has been led by Jesuit educatedBill Shorten and the current Prime MinisterAnthony Albanese, who describes himself as a "cultural Catholic".[146] Shorten, now an Anglican, wrote in his bookThe Common Good, that he is grateful for his Jesuit education and takes inspiration from the invocation of the JesuitPedro Arrupe to be "men for others".[147] Politicians including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and NSW PremierJohn Fahey studied for the priesthood before politics.Michael Tate served as a minister in the LaborHawke government and then, after politics, became a Catholic priest.[148]
Most towns in Australia have at least one Christian church.St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, follows a conventional English cathedral plan, cruciform in shape, with a tower over the crossing of the nave and transepts and twin towers at the west front with impressive stained glass windows. With a length of 106.7 metres (350 ft) and a general width of 24.4 metres (80 ft), it is Sydney's largest church. Built to a design byWilliam Wardell from a foundation stone laid in 1868, the spires of the cathedral were not finally added until the year 2000. Wardell also worked on the design of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne – among the finest examples ofecclesiastical architecture in Australia.[149][150] Wardell's overall design was in Gothic Revival style, paying tribute to the mediaeval cathedrals of Europe. Largely constructed between 1858 and 1897, the nave was Early English in style, while the remainder of the building is in Decorated Gothic.
Adelaide, the capital ofSouth Australia, has long been known as theCity of Churches. North of Adelaide 130 kilometres (81 mi) is the Jesuit old stone winery and cellars atSevenhill, founded by Austrian Jesuits in 1848.[151] A rare Australian example of Spanish missionary style exists atNew Norcia, Western Australia, founded by SpanishBenedictine monks in 1846.[152][153] A number of notableVictorian era chapels and edifices were also constructed at church schools across Australia.
Along with community attitudes to religion, church architecture changed significantly during the 20th century. St Monica's Cathedral inCairns was designed by architect Ian Ferrier and built in 1967–68 following the form of the originalbasilica model of the early churches of Rome, adapted to a tropical climate and to reflect the changes toCatholic liturgy mandated at Vatican II. The cathedral was dedicated as a memorial to theBattle of the Coral Sea which was fought east of Cairns in May 1942. The "Peace Window" stained glass was installed on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.[154][155] In the later 20th century, distinctly Australian approaches were applied at places such asJamberoo Benedictine Abbey, where natural materials were chosen to "harmonise with the local environment" and the chapel sanctuary is of glass overlooking rainforest.[156] Similar design principles were applied atThredboEcumenical Chapel built in theSnowy Mountains in 1996.[157]
Australian films on Catholic themes have included:
Television programs on Catholic themes have included:
Coverage of religion is part of the ABC's Charter[citation needed] obligation to reflect the character and diversity of the Australian community. Its religious programs include coverage of Catholic (and other) worship and devotion, explanation, analysis, debate and reports.[159] Catholic Church Television Australia is an office with the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting and develops television programs forAurora Community Television onFoxtel andAustar in Australia.[160]
The body of literature produced by Australian Catholics is extensive. During colonial times, theBenedictine missionaryWilliam Ullathorne (1806–1889) was a notable essayist writing against theConvict Transportation system. Later Cardinal Moran (1830–1911), a noted historian, wrote aHistory of the Catholic Church in Australasia.[28] More recent Catholic histories of Australia includeThe Catholic Church and Community in Australia (1977) byPatrick O'Farrell andAustralian Catholics (1987) byEdmund Campion.
Notable Catholic poets have includedChristopher Brennan (1870–1932);James McAuley (1917–1976);[161]Bruce Dawe (1930–2020) andLes Murray (1938–2019). Murray and Dawe were among Australia's foremost contemporary poets, noted for their use of vernacular and everyday Australian themes. Emblematic of the Christian poets could be McAuley's rejection ofModernism in favour of Classical culture:[162]
Many Australian writers have examined the lives of Christian characters, or have been influenced by Catholic schooling. Australia's best-selling novel of all time,The Thorn Birds byColleen McCullough, writes of the temptations encountered by a priest living in the Outback. Many contemporary Australian writers have attended or taught at Catholic schools[citation needed]
Catholic news publications have existed since 1839.[164] They currently include:The Catholic Weekly from Sydney;The Catholic Leader, published by the Brisbane Archdiocese; andEureka Street Magazine which is concerned with public affairs, arts, and theology and is run by the communication division of theJesuit religious order.
St Mary's Cathedral Choir, Sydney, is the oldest musical institution in Australia, from origins in 1817.[165] Major Catholic-raised recording artists fromJohnny O'Keefe toPaul Kelly have recorded Christian spirituals. Paul Kelly'sMeet Me in the Middle of the Air is based onPsalm 23.[166] Catholic nunSister Janet Mead achieved significant mainstream chart success.New South Wales Supreme Court JudgeGeorge Palmer was commissioned to compose the setting of the Mass for Sydney'sWorld Youth Day 2008 Papal Mass. The Mass,Benedictus Qui Venit, for large choir, soloists and orchestra, was performed in the presence ofPope Benedict XVI and an audience of 350,000 with singing led by sopranoAmelia Farrugia and tenorAndrew Goodwin. "Receive the Power", a song written byGuy Sebastian andGary Pinto, was chosen as the official anthem for the XXIIIWorld Youth Day (WYD08) held in Sydney in 2008.[167]
Australian Christmas carols like theThree Drovers orChristmas Day by John Wheeler andWilliam G. James place the Christmas story in an Australian context of warm, dry Christmas winds and red dust and are popular at Catholic services. As the festival of Christmas falls during the Australian summer, Australians gather in large numbers for traditional open-air evening carol services and concerts in December, such asCarols by Candlelight in Melbourne andCarols in the Domain in Sydney.[168]
The story of Christian art in Australia began with the arrival of the first British settlers at the end of the 18th century. During the 19th century,Gothic Revival cathedrals were built in the colonial capitals, often containingstained glass art works, as can be seen atSt Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, andSt Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne.Roy de Maistre (1894–1968) was an Australian abstract artist who obtained renown in Britain, converted to Catholicism and painted notable religious works, including a series ofStations of the Cross forWestminster Cathedral in London. Among the most acclaimed of Australian painters of Catholic themes wasArthur Boyd. He painted a Biblical series, and created tapestries of the life ofSt Francis of Assisi. Influenced by both the European masters and theHeidelberg School of Australian landscape art, he placed the central characters of the Bible within Australian bush scenery, as in his portrait ofAdam and Eve,The Expulsion (1948).[169] The artistLeonard French, who designed a stained glass ceiling of theNational Gallery of Victoria, has drawn heavily on Christian story and symbolism through his career.[170]
Some of the Australians honoured by the Catholic Church to be saints or whose cause for canonisation is still being investigated include:
Australia has hosted the major relics of a number saints:
Within Australia the church hierarchy is made of metropolitan archdioceses and suffragan sees. Each diocese has abishop, while each archdiocese is served by anarchbishop. Australia had no living members of theCollege of Cardinals from the death on 10 January 2023 of the previous Archbishop of Sydney,George Pell, until the elevation on 7 December 2024 ofMykola Bychok to the College of Cardinals. The national assembly of bishops is theAustralian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC), headed byTimothy Costelloe SDB, the Archbishop of Perth.[171] There are a further 175 autonomousCatholic religious orders operating in Australia, generally affiliated under Catholic Religious Australia, headed by SrMonica Cavanagh RSJ.[7]
The church in Australia has five provinces: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. There are seven archdioceses: Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Goulburn, Hobart, Melbourne and Perth. There are 35dioceses, comprising geographic areas as well as theAustralian Defence Force and dioceses for theChaldean,Maronite,Melkite andUkrainian rites.[6] There is also apersonal ordinariate, principally for former Anglicans, which has a similar status to a diocese.[16][17] There is also the Australian vicariate of the international personal prelature of the holy cross and opus dei.[172] Rev Paul Hayward, a member of the canon law society of Great Britain and Ireland published in 2013 a helpful article expanding on the theme of territorial and personal jurisdictions.[173] In May 2024, Pope Francis published a short letter to parish priests throughout the world offering three suggestions, the first beginning; "I ask you first to live out your specific ministerial charism in ever greater service to the varied gifts that the Spirit sows in the People of God. It is urgent to discover with faith, the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, be they of a humble or more exalted form..."[174] In 2017, there were an estimated 3,000priests and 9,000 men and women ininstitutes of consecrated life andsocieties of apostolic life.
TheAustralian Catholic Bishops Conference is the national body of the bishops of Australia.[175] The Conference is headed by Perth Archbishop,Timothy Costelloe SDB. It is served by a secretariat, based in Canberra, under the management of the Reverend Brian Lucas. The conference meets at least annually.[176]A list of Australian Prelates by name can be found at gcatholic dot org. See footnote:[177]
Australia's autonomousCatholic religious orders are affiliated under Catholic Religious Australia (CRA), which is the public name of the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (ACLRI). This is the peak body for leaders of the religious institutes and societies of apostolic life resident in Australia. It represents more than 130 congregations of sisters, brothers and priests. It is established by the authority of theHoly See in Rome and is tasked with promoting, supporting and representing religious life in the Australian church and in the wider community and with facilitating co-ordination and co-operation of religious with church bodies and with other authorities including with episcopal conferences and with individual bishops.[178] The organisation is presently led by Josephite SisterMonica Cavanagh.[7]
.svg)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)