Melbourne, June 1, 2023: Hundreds of people attended the episcopal ordination of Bishop John Panamthottathil, the second shepherd of the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of St Thomas the Apostle in Melbourne. Bishops from India, Europe and the United States, as well as 20 members of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, were amongContinue Reading
Sydney, June 22, 2020: Large Christian churches and other major religions have applied for the JobKeeper scheme to fund clergy salaries, after the government belatedly opened it up to religious practitioners. The Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches, as well as the Great Synagogue in Sydney, have confirmed hundreds of religiousContinue Reading
By Rajiv Theodore New Delhi, Nov. 7, 2019: I doubt whether I would have ever come to know of a “Didgeridoo” if a chance encounter one evening with Ron Murray did not take place. He was on his way from Melbourne to Chennai with a stopover in Delhi. As theContinue Reading
Melbourne, August 21, 2019: Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of sexual abuse, has failed in a legal bid to quash his convictions in Australia. Pell was jailed for six years in March this year after being found guilty of abusing two boys in aContinue Reading
Kochi, July 22, 2019: Mounting ire of Catholics in Australia has forced Father Dominic Valanmanal, an Indian charismatic retreat preacher, to cancel his program in September at Melbourne. Australia is the third country after Ireland and Canada to deny the priest permission to conduct retreats after his controversial sermon onContinue Reading
Brisbane: A new law requiring priests to break the seal of the confessional is “premature and ill-judged”, the Archbishop of Brisbane has said. Archbishop Mark Coleridge, President of the Australian bishops’ conference, said the law in Australian Capital Territory (ACT) was “seemingly driven by a desire to penalise the CatholicContinue Reading
An Australian court has found the Archbishop of Adelaide guilty of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest in the 1970s. Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted of failing to inform the authorities of allegations against Fr James Fletcher. He had denied being told about the abuse by some ofContinue Reading
Most serious cases have been dismissed.Continue Reading
Sydney, Australia: Following a postal survey showing support for same-sex marriage, Australia’s Catholic bishops said that the nation’s laws need to protect those who understand marriage as it has always been viewed. “Parliamentarians must recognize and respect the concerns of the more than 4.8 million Australians who opposed a change toContinue Reading
Sydney: Churches in Australia have been daubed with anti-Christian graffiti amid an increasingly toxic debate about same-sex marriage. Last weekend Anglican and Baptist churches in Melbourne were defaced with the words “bash bigots” and “Crucify ‘no’ voters” – a reference to those who are voting “no” in a same-sex marriageContinue Reading
