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According to the 2011 Australian National Census, there were 5,439,257 Catholics in Australia. This represented 25.3% of the overall Australian population and was the largest single Christian denomination (being slightly larger than the Anglican and Uniting churches combined).[3] Until the 1986 census, Australia's most populous Christian church was the Anglican Church of Australia. Since then Catholics have outnumbered Anglicans by an increasing margin. One rationale to explain this relates to changes in Australia's immigration patterns.[4] Prior to the Second World War, the majority of immigrants to Australia had come from the United Kingdom – though most of Australia's Catholic immigrants had come from Ireland. After the war, Australia's immigration program diversified and more than 6.5 million migrants arrived in Australia in the following 60 years, including more than a million Catholics from nations such as Italy, Malta, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Croatia and Hungary.[4] While Catholicism is now the largest church tradition in Australia and the Catholic population continues to grow (although more slowly than the total population), active participation in weekly church attendance has been in decline.[5] The Pastoral Projects Office found that weekly attendance fell from 763,726 in 2001 to 708,618 in 2006, representing 13.8% of Australian Caltholics.[6] By contrast, Mass attendance in the mid-1950s was estimated at 74%. In Australia there are seven archdioceses and 32 dioceses, with an estimated 3,000 priests and 9,000 men and women in religious institutes.[citation needed] A diocese usually has a defined territory and comprises the Catholics who live there. This is the case with 28 of the Australian dioceses. There are also five dioceses which cover the whole country: one each for those who belong to the Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite and Ukrainian rites and one for those who are serving in the Australian Defence Forces.[7] State/Territory [8] % 2011 % 2006 % 2001 Australian Capital Territory 26.1 28.0 29.1 New South Wales 27.5 28.2 28.9 Northern Territory 21.6 21.1 22.2 Queensland 23.8 24.0 24.8 South Australia 19.9 20.2 20.8 Tasmania 17.9 18.4 19.3 Total 25.3 25.8 26.6 Victoria 26.7 27.5 28.4 Western Australia 23.6 23.7 24.7 History Arrival and suppression Since time immemorial in Australia, indigenous people had performed the rites and rituals of the animist religion of the Dreamtime. Europeans had assumed the existence of a great southern land mass since ancient times. 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 the New Hebrides and, believing it to be the fabled southern continent, he named the land: Austrialis del Espiritu Santo Southern Land of the Holy Spirit.[9][10] Later that year, his deputy Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through Australia's Torres Strait.[11] The permanent presence of Catholicism in Australia however, came with the arrival of the First 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.[4] A small proportion of British marines were also Catholic. Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland, so the authorities were suspicious of the minority religion for the first three decades of settlement.[12] It was the crew of the French explorer La Pérouse who conducted the first Catholic ceremony on Australian soil in 1788 – the burial of Father Louis Receveur, a Franciscan monk, who died while the ships were at anchor at Botany Bay, while on a mission to explore the Pacific.[13] Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Anglicans.[14] The first Catholic priests arrived in Australia as convicts in 1800 – James Harold, James Dixon and Peter O'Neill, who had been convicted for "complicity" in the Irish 1798 Rebellion. Fr Dixon was conditionally emancipated and permitted to celebrate Mass. 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.[14] The Irish led Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 alarmed the British authorities and Dixon's permission to celebrate Mass was revoked. Fr Jeremiah Flynn, an Irish Cistercian monk, was appointed as Prefect Apostolic of New Holland and set out from Britain for the colony uninvited. Watched by authorities, 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 and Philip Connolly.[12] The foundation stone for the first St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney was laid on 29 October 1821 by Governor Lachlan 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 English Benedictine monks to lead the early church in the colony.[15] William Bernard Ullathorne (1806–1889) was instrumental in influencing Pope Gregory XVI to establish the hierarchy in Australia. Ullathorne was in Australia from 1833–1836 as vicar-general to Bishop William Morris (1794–1872), whose jurisdiction extended over the Australian missions. Emancipation and growth Catholic humanitarian Caroline Chisolm. The Church of England was disestablished in the Colony of New South Wales by the Church Act of 1836. Drafted by the Catholic attorney-general John 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 and 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.[16] St Aloysius Church, Sevenhill, South Australia. The Jesuits were the first order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory – Austrian Jesuits established themselves in the south and north and Irish in the east. St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. The church's most prominent early leader was John Bede Polding, a Benedictine 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 Irish Sisters 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 to Hobart and established a school.[17] The sisters went on to establish hospitals in four of the eastern states, beginning with St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1857 as a free hospital for all people, but especially for the poor.[18] At Polding's request, the Christian 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 Australian religious institute in the Benedictine tradition – the Sisters of the Good Samaritan – to work in education and social work.[19] While Polding was in office, construction began on the ambitious Gothic Revival designs for St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne and the final St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. Establishing themselves first at Sevenhill, in the newly established colony of South Australia in 1848, the Jesuits were the first religious order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory – Austrian Jesuits established themselves in the south and north and Irish in the east. The goldrush saw an increase in the population and propserity of the colonies and called for an increase in the number of episcopal 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 of Xavier College in Melbourne, St Aloysius' College and Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview in Sydney – which each survive to the present.[20] In 1885, Patrick Francis Moran became Australia's first cardinal. St Patrick's College, Manly, intended to provide priests for all the colonies, was opened in 1889. 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".[21] 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. According to Aboriginal anthropologist Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith, there were many occasions when the Catholic Church attempted to advocate for Aboriginal rights, but the missionaries were also "functionaries of the Protection and Assimilation policies" of the government and so "directly contributed to the current disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians".[22][23] 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); the Sisters of Mercy (who had arrived in Perth in 1846); Marist Brothers, who came from France in 1872 and the Sisters of St Joseph, founded in Australia by Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods in 1867.[24][25][26] MacKillop travelled throughout Australasia 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 by Pope John Paul II in 1995 and canonised by Benedict XVI in 2010.[27] Catholic schools flourished in Australia and by 1900 there were 115 Christian Brothers teaching in Australia. By 1910 there were 5000 religious sisters teaching in schools.[12] The Catholic Church in Australia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual and administrative leadership of the Holy See. Australia is a majority Christian but pluralistic society with no established religion. In 2011 there were approximately 5.4 million Australian Catholics (25.3% of the population). Catholicism arrived in Australia with the British First Fleet in 1788. The first Australian Catholics were mainly Irish, but Australian Catholics now originate from a great variety of national backgrounds. The church is a major provider of health, education and charitable services: Catholic Social Services Australia's 63 member organisations help more than a million Australians every year; and the Catholic education system has more than 650,000 students (18% of student population).[1] Australia has 32 dioceses and 1,363 parishes. Catholic Religious Australia, the peak body for leaders of religious institutes and societies of apostolic life resident in Australia, comprises members from more than 180 congregations of sisters, brothers and religious priests living in Australia. Mary MacKillop, who founded an educational religious institute of sisters, the Josephites, in the 19th century, became the first Australian to be canonised as a saint in 2010. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference is headed by Archbishop Denis Hart and there are two Australian cardinals: the current Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, George Pell, and the former President of the Vatican Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Edward Cassidy. Australia played host to World Youth Day 2008. |
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