Bishop Peter Comensoli has been named as the new Archbishop of Melbourne. Comensoli will be installed as archbishop on 1 August. He has been the Bishop of Broken Bay in New South Wales for the past three years. When he is installed, he will take over from recently-retired Archbishop Denis Hart at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Read more
Australia’s Federal Labor party has pledged to restore $250m of funding to the country’s Catholic schools. Bill Shorten, who is the party’s federal parliamentary leader, has promised the Catholic Bishops’ Conference chairman, Bishop Denis Hart, to “arbitrarily” give Catholic schools the $250m in the first two years of government. Shorten also pledged billions more to Read more
Australians’ “yes” vote supporting legalising same-sex marriage may pose more questions than answers. The non-binding referendum drew 7.8 million for same-sex marriage and 4.9 million against. Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Denis Hart says parliament must work to unify Australians by respecting different views on marriage. “The Catholic Church, and many others who sought Read more
Australia’s Catholic church is threatening to fire teachers, nurses and other employees who marry their same-sex partner if gay marriage is legalised. The Church’s threats come as opponents and supporters of marriage equality stand firm to their view while the countdown to the federal government’s postal vote to decide the issue continues. The Archbishop of Read more
Controversy has broken out in Australia since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published recommendations saying priests should break the confessional seal when child sexual abuse is confessed. The Commission wants legislation introduced to jail people who fail to report child sexual abuse, including priests. In response, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Read more
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne says that until 2001, priests found guilty of sex crimes often kept their positions because of Vatican intransigence. Archbishop Hart told Australia’s Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that a conviction was often not sufficient to have a priest defrocked. “There was a leaning in favour of Read more
The Vatican has ordered the excommunication of Catholic priest Greg Reynolds over his support for women priests and gays. The Australian news site The Age reported that the excommunication document – written in Latin – was dated May 31. Reynolds, who resigned as a parish priest in 2011 and last year founded Inclusive Catholics, said Read more
Australia’s Catholic bishops have decided to set up a special council — including bishops, religious and lay people — to work with the forthcoming royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse. At the end of their twice-yearly conference in Sydney, the bishops said they had formed a supervisory group of representatives from the Read more