Under previous pontificates bishops coming to Rome for meetings with Vatican officials could expect to be briefed about the work going on at head office and, if they had fallen out of line, should expect a stern telling off. This is changing with Pope Francis. According to the Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, who was Read more
A priest was stabbed “for being Indian” just before celebrating Mass on Sunday. The stabbing happened at the 11am mass at St Matthew’s church in the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner North. It is believed the 72-year old offender accused Fr Tomy Kalathoor Mathew of being Hindu or Muslim and stabbed him in the neck. The Read more
Two Missionaries of Charity sisters in Melbourne have sparked controversy after they reportedly defaced political posters from the Australian Sex Party. An image of the nuns was posted on Instagram last week and the Sex Party released it and another photograph to the media on Friday. Sex Party leader Fiona Patten said the pair of sisters Read more
A Melbourne Catholic school will let a girl wear pants instead of a tunic to school after a social media campaign to change its uniform policy. The campaign started after media coverage of grade 1 pupil Asha Cariss’s objections over not being allowed to wear pants to school. The school’s previous uniform policy was that Read more
A health issue means Cardinal George Pell will not go to Australia this month to testify in person before a royal commission into child sex abuse. The cardinal, currently based at the Vatican, had been scheduled to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne on December 16. But Cardinal Read more
An Australian priest broke the seal of Confession to warn a fellow paedophile priest about an altar boy’s abuse complaint. On Monday, during hearings in Melbourne, Australia’s Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard from the victim about the 1968 incident. In the confessional, “BTU” told Fr Wilfred Baker that Fr Ronald Read more
Abuse survivors from Ballarat are outraged that Cardinal George Pell will appear before a royal commission in Melbourne, not in their city. Cardinal Pell had been due to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at the second stage of the Ballarat hearings in November. However, last week the Read more
The Coptic Orthodox Church is developing a multi-million dollar Melbourne CBD high-rise to house its newest parish. At each corner of the A$90 million development, four steel boxes containing gospels have been lowered into the ground. In the centre, a time capsule was buried. It contained the Bible, a wooden cross, money, the newspaper of Read more
The number of men studying for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College in Melbourne has more than doubled since 1999. There are now 59 men in training at Corpus Christi, the highest number since the 1970s. They come from at least nine Australian archdioceses and dioceses. In 1999, the number at Corpus Christi was 28. Read more
Police in Melbourne are investigating suspected arsons at three churches with historic links to abusive priests. Fire destroyed the 123-year-old St James Church in Brighton in late March. And fires at St Mary’s Church in Dandenong caused A$250,000 worth of damage. A separate blaze started near a door at St Mary’s in St Kilda East Read more