Fr Stephen Hackett MSC has been elected provincial superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Australia, and will conclude him time as general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in July.
Fr Hackett’s ministerial background included appointments within secondary and tertiary education, as a parish priest in several Australian dioceses and as vicar general in the Diocese of Darwin.
A new National Centre for Pastoral Research report published today provides a comprehensive snapshot of the millions of people who identified as Catholic in the 2021 Australia Census.
The Social Profile of the Catholic Community in Australia is the latest in a series of reports published following each national Census, providing extensive demographic information on Australian Catholics.
Financial pressures on low- and middle-income families have made responding to the cost of living one of the country’s most important and urgent policy issues, Australia’s bishops told the Senate Select Committee on the Cost of Living.
“Every day, thousands of Australian families feel the effects of international crises, insecure job markets, inflation, rising interest rates and slow wage growth,” Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, chair of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service, said in a recent submission to the Committee.
The bishops of Oceania say their people’s reflections for the global Synod of Bishops for a Synodal Church left them feeling “peace and joy”, but also called them to be prophetic and ready to “model ourselves on the love we proclaim”.
The bishops, in Fiji for the quadrennial assembly of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania in February, spent part of that gathering considering the region’s response to the Synod’s Working Document for the Continental Stage, titled Enlarge the Space of Your Tent.
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has told the Fair Work Commission a 7.2 per cent increase in the minimum wage is needed to protect workers at risk of poverty – and analysis shows it is affordable.
The Bishops Conference has made submissions on the national minimum wage for decades, arguing consistently that working people and their families living in poverty is inconsistent with principles that see the minimum wage as a “safety net”.
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has told parliamentarians that they should place the needs of vulnerable people at the centre of the country’s culture and politics.
The call was made in a submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee’s inquiry on poverty, which the committee recently published.
Jillian Segal, Bishop Michael McKenna and Teresa Pirola at the launch of Walking Together
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference today launched a new document to highlight Christianity’s unique relationship with Judaism and the celebrate the positive relationship the two faiths enjoy in Australia.
Walking Together: Catholics and Jews in the Australian Context comes 30 years after the Bishops Conference published a set of guidelines and recommendations to enhance Catholic-Jewish relations.
Fr Kimi Vunivesilevu (left) and Fr Stephen Hackett led the spirituality day
Staff from its General Secretariat have extended the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s commitment to its Laudato Si’ Action Plan with a spirituality day focused on “An Integral Ecology of the Heart”.
Fr Kimi Vunivesilevu MSC and fellow Missionary of the Sacred Heart priest Fr Stephen Hackett, the general secretary of the Bishops Conference, guided staff through a four-part program.
Archbishops Peter A Comensoli and Anthony Fisher OP
Senior bishops have warned law changes proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission would prevent Church schools from being authentically Catholic, arguing they would discount the rights of people with a religious faith.
The fears were raised in the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s submission to the Law Reform Commission’s Inquiry into Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws.
People following global progress towards the two assemblies of the Synod of Bishops for a Synodal Church are being invited to participate in Lenten prayers to support the ongoing journey.
The Synod’s General Secretariat has published Lenten resources in multiple languages for use around the world as the continental stage of the Synod continues.