A Vatican report about Bishop Saunders has already been handed to Western Australia Police. The facts run counter to a scandalous allegation to the contrary, says a statement from the Catholic Church. Recent news reports allege the Church has refused to hand the Vatican report to the Police. The Conference has responded firmly, denying the Read more
A Vatican report into sex abuse allegations against Christopher Saunders, the former Bishop of Broome, has sparked renewed interest from the Western Australian police. The police have twice investigated Saunders (73) and not charged him, and are now calling on Church authorities to allow them to see the report. The Vatican report identifies Saunders as Read more
A delegation of Australian Bishops has travelled to war-torn Ukraine to bring their closeness to the nation’s suffering people. According to the Bishops’ Conference website’s media blog, the delegation from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) made the pastoral visit to several Ukrainian cities on 8-11 August in an expression of solidarity with the country’s Read more
Australian bishops have made an urgent call to address the cost of living pressures facing low and middle-income families. The country’s bishops have urged the Senate Select Committee on the Cost of Living to take action to mitigate the rising cost of living, which they describe as one of the country’s most pressing policy issues. Read more
Hundreds of Catholic schools in Australia have been asked not to help children undertake gender transition. In a rare intervention, Australia’s Catholic bishops told the schools that sex is not a social construct but a “physical, biological reality.” Society has “widely adopted the belief that each person’s innermost concept of themselves determines their gender identity,” Read more
Dioceses throughout Australia are progressing their Synod journey, with reports being prepared from the local consultation phase of the Global Synod on Synodality. Individuals and groups were invited to reflect on and respond to a series of questions across the Synod of Bishops’ three key themes: communion, participation and mission. The online portal for submissions Read more
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned that religious Australians should not be “cancelled, persecuted or vilified” because of their beliefs. Instead, Morrison insisted, people of faith must be defended from those who seek to marginalise and silence them. After tabling the government’s religious discrimination bill in parliament on Thursday, Morrison said faith groups and Read more
Increasing the refugee intake is one way the Australian Government could help with the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan, says Archbishop Mark Coleridge. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president says the government should provide at least 20,000 humanitarian places for refugees from Afghanistan in the wake of the current Taliban takeover. In a letter to Read more
The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference will work with Australian bishops – and any other conference that wants to contribute – on a new translation of the lectionary used in Mass. The Australian bishops are also planning to base their updated translation on the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB). Bishop Stephen Lowe says New Zealand’s Read more
Catholic schoolgirls in Brisbane are being taught that God is gender neutral. Aiming to teach the girls at the region’s exclusive Catholic schools to use inclusive language, the girls are not allowed to use male-centric terms or the words ‘Lord’, ‘Father’ and ‘Son’. The girls at AU$40,000 a year Stuartholme School in Brisbane, are taught Read more