Melbourne Diocese has become the second Australian diocese to call for legislation to permit women bishops.
The Standing Committee for the Diocese of Sydney has reserved $1.2 million for an Aboriginal Ministry Trust Fund. Speaking about the initiative, the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Revd Harry Goodhew said: "This is a good move as it is intended to encourage the development of Aboriginal Ministry in the Diocese of Sydney. It is intended to be spent on the training and developing of Aboriginal ministers who will lead and minister to their own people."
A team of voluntary youth leaders from the Diocese of Melbourne is visiting South Africa in a cross-cultural leadership development programme as part of the mutual 150th anniversary celebrations of the Diocese of Melbourne and Cape Town.
The Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt Revd Roger Herft, will launch a Year of Listening on 1 November to discuss the diocese's attitude to the range of human relationships which now exist in modern society.
Mine is a painful story, but I'm sharing it with non-indigenous people because I want them to understand where indigenous people are coming from and how much pain they've gone through.
According to figures recently released by the Australian government's Bureau of Statistics, 73.8 per cent of Australia's nearly 18 million people identify with some religious group, and 70 per cent identify with a Christian group.
What a wonderful occasion this is. How good it is to be meeting in Paradise! I am absolutely delighted to be with you this evening for this great celebration of 150 years of worship, witness and devoted service of Christ in South Australia. Thank you, Archbishop Ian, for inviting us to be a part of his. I was especially struck this evening by your National Anthem, which I have, of course, heard before, but I found the element of welcome in it particularly heart-warming : "For those who've come across the seas; We've boundless plains to share"
Australia's only Aboriginal bishop has called on his people to apologise for killing white settlers in the past. The Rt Revd Arthur Malcolm, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of North Queensland, has said that both sides needed to apologise. He was speaking after Australia's Prime Minister and Federal Government had refused to respond to calls for a formal national apology for the so-called "stolen children". Aboriginal children removed forcibly from their parents over many decades.
Australia's Church leaders have entered a growing national controversy over an independent member of Federal Parliament who is opposed to the national policy of accepting migrants from Asia.
The Anglican Church has been advised that there will be an state inquiry into the need for euthanasia in Tasmania.
The decision by the Senate, the upper House of the Australian Parliament, to discard the Northern Territory's euthanasia legislation was today welcomed by church leaders. The Senate vote followed a vote in the House of Representatives some weeks earlier, which also supported the Private Member's Bill designed to overturn the Northern Territory euthanasis legislation.
The Anglican Board of Mission (ABM) is making a series of sweeping changes to put more emphasis on parish work. This year the ABM will streamline its administration in favour of strategically-located field staff specialising the areas of youth ministry, mission education and development work.
A major national conference to map out the future of the Anglican Church in Australia in the new millennium will be held in Canberra in February. More than 1,000 Anglicans will be attending.
The Anglican Dean of Sydney, Boak Jobbins, said the latest death by euthanasia in the Northern Territory was another day of shame for Australia. "Quite clearly we are a nation that has come to the end of its resources," Dean Jobbins said. "We no longer have anything to offer the terminally ill, the aged or the disabled but a quick exit at the end of a needle."
In November, Sydney's diocesan synod rejected a compromise attempt to allow women priests to be ordained in the diocese. It also refused to accept the new Australian prayer book.
A report published by the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population, entitled Anglicans in Australia, reported that Anglicans were a declining proportion of the population. The report, which is one of a series examining religious traditions in Australia, also showed that those who attended Anglican Churches represent professional and business people rather than the generality of the population.
The Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Revd Harry Goodhew, spoke out this month against euthanasia following the first case of legal euthanasia in the Northern Territory. The Archbishop urged that the Federal Government to vote for an anti-euthanasia bill which would effectively overturn the Northern Territory voluntary euthanasia law.
Leading Anglicans are voicing their concerns about the proposed A$8 million cuts to programmes and services in the Australian Federal Budget.
An official of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has warned that the policies of Australia's new government suggest that the country is taking "a step backward" on the welfare of the country's indigenous people, the Aborigines. The Revd Bob Scott, an Anglican clergyman from Aotearoa/New Zealand, who is an executive staff member in the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism, expressed deep "disappointment" about the attitude of the new government, after meeting an Australian delegation to the United Nations' forum on indigenous peoples, held in Geneva recently.
Yankalilla is a resort community in the Fleurieu Peninsula, some 25km from Adelaide's suburbs. Christ Church, Yankalilla, Diocese of The Murray, is nothing unusual, though the building is situated close to an ancient corroboree ground. In Advent 1994, some parishioners noticed an image on the white plaster wall, some four metres above floor level, in the sanctuary area to the right of the east windows. They describe it as like a Madonna and Child.
The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Revd Harry Goodhew, has called for uniform national gun legislation following the horrendous massacre in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
Sometimes people are surprised that Jim Rosenthal, the Archbishop of Canterbury's (international Anglican Communion) communications officer, comes from Chicago. But many of the support staff in the communications office come from other countries, a reflection of the office's function: giving a sense of connection to the far flung members of the Anglican Communion.
The highest court of the Anglican Church of Australia, the Appellate Tribunal, will give a ruling on lay presidency after two references were lodged with it in March. The first, brought by the Archbishop of Melbourne, the Most Revd Keith Rayner, asks whether it it legal under the Church's constitution for deacons or lay people to preside at holy communion, and whether a diocesan synod may permit lay presidency without support from General Synod legislation.
In March 1995 the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney resolved to request the Primate to refer the following question to the Appellate Tribunal for its opinion: Would the Preaching and Administration of Holy Communion by Lay Persons and Deacons Ordinance 1995, if passed by the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney and assented to by the Archbishop of Sydney in the form now before the Synod, be consistent with the provisions of the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia?
In his presidential address to the Synod of the Diocese of Melbourne, the Most Revd Keith Rayner, Primate of the Australian Anglican Church, said that the ordination of women bishops was a logical progression after women priests, and called on the diocese to carefully study the matter.
