Distances and demographics combine to tell the story.
Three-quarters the size of the United States, Australia is mainly uninhabited except along its coastline. While the U.S. shelters close to 313 million people, latest Australian census statistics report only 22 million persons on the continent’s nearly 3 million square miles.
Australia’s Christians — mainly descendants of 18th-century British settlers and Irish convicts, and of later émigrés from Germany and Italy — comprise 61 percent of the population. Australia’s newest immigrants continue arriving from the United Kingdom and Italy, but also from New Zealand, China, India, Vietnam and the Phillippines. Read more
Sources
- Phyllis Zagano in National Catholic Reporter
- Image: Panoramio
Phyllis Zagano is a Catholic scholar and lecturer on contemporary spirituality and women’s issues in the church.