Australia's Changing Catholics
Media Release - DPS 6/96
Australia's largest religious community, the Catholics, is undergoing a period of profound change, according to a new report, The Catholics in Australia, released today by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.
The report is the ninth in a series of religious community profiles published by the Department. It was written by Robert Dixon, pastoral research project officer for the Australian Catholic Bishop's Conference.
The 4.6 million Catholics in Australia make up more than one-quarter (27.3%) of Australia's population, and numbers continue to rise rapidly, the report says.
Mr Dixon found that Australia's Catholic Church is likely to continue undergoing the profound change which has affected it since the 1950s, largely brought about by a combination of general social and political changes and the large influx of Catholic immigrants.
During the 1960s and 1970s more than 1 million Catholics from countries such as Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, and Hungary migrated to Australia. Other migrants were members Eastern Catholic, or Eastern Rite churches, of which there are a small number in Australia, including Maronite, Armenian, the Coptic Church, Melkite, Ukrainian and Russian Churches.
While immigration brought change upon the church, the Second Vatican Council, held in Rome in the early 1960s, was probably the church's most significant event this century. Its teachings had an enormous impact on the church community in Australia, making it less hierarchical and changing the way it interacted with the rest of society.
The Council's reaffirmation of the church's teaching on artificial contraception is thought to be a major reason for the drop in attendance at Sunday Mass, with many Catholics no longer believing they have a serious obligation to attend - only an estimated 18% attend regularly.
Nevetheless, they see value in identifying themselves as Catholics, and many maintain their Catholic identity through informal networks, membership of Catholic organisations, or their children's Catholic schools.
The report also indicates other major changes since the 1950, including the decline in the number of priests, sisters and brothers at the same time as their average age is increasing. Leadership roles are increasingly being filled by lay people and old forms of devotion like the rosary have almost disappeared. Where once most Masses were held in Latin, now they are using the vernacular.
For example, in Melbourne, there are services in 29 different languages in 91 parishes: one in nine attends Mass in a non-English language. Sydney has 72 centres where non-English Masses are held regularly.
While 77% of Catholics speak English at home, Italian is spoken at home by 8%, followed by Spanish, spoken by 1.5% of Catholics.
The report found that Catholics are particularly concentrated in the largest states, with almost two out of three (65.5%) living in New South Wales, the ACT or Victoria, compared with 58.7% of the general population who live in these areas. In both Melbourne and Sydney, Catholics make up just over 30% of the population.
In 1991, 23.2% of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population reported their religion as Catholic.
While most Christian denominations face the challenge of ageing communities, the average Catholic is younger than the average Australian - their median age is 30.7 years, compared with 32.4 years for the general Australian population. Catholic families still tend to be larger, on average, than other families, but the difference is less marked than in the past, the report says.
Canberra, 26 September 1996
Media contact: Robert Dixon (03) 9543 5111