Since the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has struggled with controversy regarding homosexuality in the church. In 1998, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops passed a resolution "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". However, this is not legally binding. "Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion, including the Church of England, though it commends an essential and persuasive view of the attitude of the Communion." "Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, South India, New Zealand and Canada have taken steps toward approving and celebrating same-sex relationships amid strong resistance among other national churches within the 80 million-member global body. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has allowed same-sex marriage since 2015, and the Scottish Episcopal Church has allowed same-sex marriage since 2017." "Church of England clergy have appeared to signal support for gay marriage after they rejected a bishops' report which said that only a man and woman could marry in church." The Church of England's 2019 General Synod was set to discuss a diocesan motion "to create a set of formal services and prayers to bless those who have had a same-sex marriage or civil partnership". At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain married and recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition provided that the spouses identified as opposite genders at the time of the marriage.
The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Roman Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. According to a study published in 2016 by the Journal of Anglican Studies and Cambridge University Press, using the data contributed by the church, the Anglican Church of Australia has more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. For much of Australian history the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
The Catholic Church in Australia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual and administrative leadership of the Holy See. From origins as a suppressed, mainly Irish minority in early colonial times, the church has grown to be the largest Christian denomination in Australia, with a culturally diverse membership of around 5,439,268 people, representing about 23% of the overall population of Australia according to the 2016 census.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is l'Église anglicane du Canada. In 2017, the Anglican Church counted 359,030 members on parish rolls in 2,206 congregations, organized into 1,571 parishes. The 2011 Canadian Census counted 1,631,845 self-identified Anglicans, making the Anglican Church the third-largest Canadian church after the Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada. Although Canada has no established church, the Queen of Canada's Canadian Royal Style continues to include the title of Defender of the Faith, albeit not in relation to any specific denomination, and the Canadian Monarch continues her countenance of three Chapels Royal in the Realm.
Peter Frederick Carnley is a retired Australian Anglican bishop and author. He was the Archbishop of Perth from 1981 to 2005 and Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia from 2000 until May 2005. He ordained the first women priests in Australia. In the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours list, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia. He is married to Ann Carnley.
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788.
The Anglican Diocese of Perth is one of the 23 dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. The constitution of the Diocese of Perth was passed and adopted in 1872 at the first synod held in Western Australia. In 1914, the Province of Western Australia was created and the diocesan bishop of Perth became ex officio metropolitan bishop of the new province and therefore also an archbishop.
The Anglican Diocese of Newcastle in Australia is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia. The diocese is located in the state of New South Wales. It is centred in the city of Newcastle and extends along the state's coast from Woy Woy to Laurieton and inland to Merriwa and Murrurundi.
The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane, also known as Anglican Church Southern Queensland, is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The diocesan bishop's seat is at St John's Cathedral, Brisbane. The diocese stretches from the south-eastern coastline of Queensland, down to the New South Wales border and west to the Northern Territory and South Australian borders. The diocese currently markets itself as "Anglican Church Southern Queensland" (ACSQ). The "Anglicare Southern Queensland" brand is also heavily promoted by the diocese.
The Anglican Diocese of the Northern Territory covers Australia's Northern Territory and is part of the Province of Queensland in the Anglican Church of Australia.
The Diocese of Rockhampton is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, founded in 1892. It is situated in the central part of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Province of Queensland. The cathedral church of the diocese is St Paul's Cathedral in Rockhampton.
The Anglican Diocese of Adelaide is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia. It is centred in the city of Adelaide in the state of South Australia and extends along the eastern shore of the Gulf St Vincent from the town of Eudunda in the north to Aldgate in the south. The diocesan cathedral is Saint Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide. The diocese was founded in 1847 with Augustus Short as the first bishop. The incumbent Archbishop of Adelaide since 2017 has been Geoffrey Smith, who has also been the Anglican Primate of Australia since 2020.
The Anglican Diocese of North West Australia is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, founded in 1910. It is situated in the northern part of the state of Western Australia, Australia. As part of the Province of Western Australia, it covers those parts of the state north of Perth including Geraldton, Karratha and Broome and is geographically the largest Anglican diocese in Australia and the largest land-based diocese in the world. The diocese has 18 parishes and three Mission to Seafarers’ ministries; the cathedral church of the diocese is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Geraldton.
The Anglican Diocese of Tasmania includes the entire Tasmanian archipelago and is an extraprovincial diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia.
Lindsay Goodall Urwin OGS is an Australian Anglican bishop. Urwin was the area Bishop of Horsham in the Diocese of Chichester, in southern England, from 1993 to 2009, and was also the principal organiser of the annual Caister Conference. He was the administrator of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham from 2009 to 2015. On 12 April 2015, his appointment was announced as vicar of Christ Church Brunswick in the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Australia. He was inducted on 15 September 2015.
Donald Norman Shearman was an Australian Anglican bishop who served as Bishop of Rockhampton from 1963 to 1971 and Bishop of Grafton from 1973 to 1985. In 2004, a church tribunal found Shearman guilty of misconduct for sexually abusing a schoolgirl while serving as a boarding master at an Anglican hostel in Forbes, New South Wales, in the 1950s. On 25 August 2004, Shearman became the first member of the clergy in the Anglican Church of Australia to be removed from holy orders as a result of that finding.
St Mark's Anglican Church is a heritage-listed church at 36 Larnach Street, Allenstown, Rockhampton, Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1900. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 28 July 2000.
St John's College, Morpeth, known colloquially as the "Poor Man's College, Armidale", was opened in Armidale in 1898 as a theological college to train clergy to serve in the Church of England in Australia. It moved to Morpeth in 1926 and closed in 2006.
David Robinson is an Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He served as the 12th Bishop of Rockhampton from 3 September 2014 to 22 February 2020.
Peter John Grice is an Australian Anglican bishop and former lawyer who has served as the 13th Bishop of Rockhampton since 27 February 2021. He previously served as Dean of Geraldton in the Diocese of North West Australia between 2015 and 2020.
