AUSTRALIA
National Catholic Reporter
Jul. 19, 2012
By Phyllis Zagano
Distances and demographics combine to tell the story.
Three-quarters the size of the United States, Australia is mainly uninhabited except along its coastline. While the U.S. shelters close to 313 million people, latest Australian census statistics report only 22 million persons on the continent’s nearly 3 million square miles.
Australia’s Christians — mainly descendants of 18th-century British settlers and Irish convicts, and of later émigrés from Germany and Italy — comprise 61 percent of the population. Australia’s newest immigrants continue arriving from the United Kingdom and Italy, but also from New Zealand, China, India, Vietnam and the Phillippines. …
Many Australian Catholics who remain — who have not shifted to “no religion” — are disaffected and are speaking out. Catholics for Renewal, Catholics for Ministry, Australian Reforming Catholics, and Catalyst for Renewal are among the more active groups, with other pockets of upset operating around the country.
Fewer than 200 Australian men are studying for the priesthood, and statisticians contend that within 10 years more than half the priests will be foreign-born — perhaps not much different when Irish and Scots clergy followed their countrymen, except the new foreign-born are not native speakers of English.
Bishop William Morris (CNS/Diocese of Toowoomba)Against this backdrop — more non-Christians, disaffected Catholics, fewer priests and religious — play out the stories of three resigned bishops: Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson (born 1937), Toowoomba Bishop William Morris (born 1943), and Canberra Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Power (born 1942). All three wanted to talk about the elephants in the episcopal palaces. All three found it rough going. All three resigned, more or quite less voluntarily.
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