George Pell was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 and 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He was also an author, columnist and public speaker. From 1996, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is a Latin Rite metropolitan archdiocese in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Erected initially in 1847 as the Diocese of Melbourne, a suffragan diocese of Archdiocese of Sydney, the diocese was elevated in 1874 as an archdiocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Melbourne and is the metropolitan for the suffragan dioceses of Sale, Sandhurst, Ballarat, and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Ss Peter and Paul. The Archdiocese of Hobart is attached to the archdiocese for administrative purposes. St Patrick's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Melbourne, currently Peter Comensoli, who succeeded Denis Hart on 1 August 2018.
The Diocese of Ballarat, based in Ballarat, Australia, is a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and was established in 1874. Its geography covers the west, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The cathedral is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.
Leo Morris Clarke was an Australian bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland in New South Wales from 1976 to 1995.
The Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, officially the Hospitaller Order of the Brothers of Saint John of God, are a Catholic religious order founded in 1572. In Italian they are also known commonly as the Fatebenefratelli, meaning "Do-Good Brothers", and elsewhere as the "Brothers of Mercy", the "Merciful Brothers" and the "John of God Brothers". The order carries out a wide range of health and social service activities in 389 centres and services in 46 countries.
The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan Latin Church diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney, established in 1847 initially as the Diocese of Maitland and changed to the current name in 1995. The diocese covers the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales in Australia. The bishop of the diocese is Michael Kennedy.
Nial William Fulton is an Australian film and television director, producer and writer. Focused on social justice issues, his works include investigative documentaries Revelation, Hitting Home, Borderland, The Queen & Zak Grieve and Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra.
Philip Edward Wilson was an Australian Roman Catholic prelate who was the eighth Archbishop of Adelaide from 2001 to 2018. He was President of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference from 2006 to 2010. From 1996 to 2001 Wilson was bishop of the Diocese of Wollongong, where he gained a reputation as a "healing bishop" for handling child-abuse scandals.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria is part of the Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia and the much wider Catholic sexual abuse scandal in general, which involves charges, convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. The Catholic Church in Victoria has been implicated in a reported 40 suicides among about 620 sexual abuse victims acknowledged to the public after internal investigations by the Catholic Church in Victoria.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale is an Australian laicised Catholic priest and sex offender. He was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
Sarah Ferguson is an Australian journalist, reporter and television presenter. She is the host of ABC TV's flagship news and current affairs program 7.30. She was previously a journalist for Dateline, Insight, Sunday and Four Corners.
Ronald Austin Mulkearns was the bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat in Ballarat, Australia, a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. He resigned as bishop on 30 May 1997. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that Mulkearns was "derelict in his duty".
Paul Bird C.Ss.R. is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ballarat.
Joanne Maree Therese McCarthy is an Australian investigative journalist. Working for The Newcastle Herald, McCarthy wrote more than 1,000 articles on Catholic Church child sex abuse cases in the Hunter region. McCarthy's journalism was a decisive factor in Julia Gillard's decision to announce the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Bernard Kevin McGrath is a New Zealand convicted child sex abuser and former member of the Catholic religious order the Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God. He is considered to be the most notorious offender in the most notorious religious order in Australia. His victims include orphans, children with intellectual and physical disabilities and homeless children in Australia and New Zealand.
Vincent Gerard Ryan was an Australian Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing 37 children. He was first charged in October 1995 and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Ryan was the first Catholic priest in the Newcastle, New South Wales, region to be charged with child sexual abuse, and one of the first in the world to be convicted of such abuse.
Patrick Daniel Cotter was an Irish-born Catholic priest who was incardinated in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in Australia from 1938 to 2007.
Michael Robert Kennedy is an Australian prelate of the Catholic Church who was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in February 2023. He was bishop of Armidale from 2012 to 2023.
