Archdiocese of Melbourne Archidioecesis Melburnensis |
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Location | |
Country | Australia |
Territory | Melbourne |
Ecclesiastical province | Melbourne |
Metropolitan | Melbourne |
Coordinates | 37°48′32″S 144°58′46″E / 37.80889°S 144.97944°E |
Statistics | |
Area | 27,194 km2 (10,500 sq mi) |
Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2013) 4,095,921 1,111,981 ( 27.1%) |
Parishes | 216 |
Information | |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Rite | Latin Rite |
Established | 31 March 1874 |
Cathedral | St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne |
Patron saint | St. Patrick |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Archbishop | Denis James Hart |
Auxiliary Bishops |
Terence Curtin, Peter John Elliott Mark Stuart Edwards, O.M.I. |
Emeritus Bishops | Joseph O'Connell, Hilton Deakin |
Map | |
Website | |
www |
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 responsible for the suffragan dioceses of Sale, Sandhurst and Ballarat. The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Ss Peter and Paul and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart are attached to the archdiocese, for administrative purposes. St Patrick's Cathedral is the seat of the archbishop of Melbourne, currently Denis Hart.
According to the 2006 Commonwealth Census figures, there were 4,932,423 people within the province. Of these, 1,349,828 were Catholic, about 28% of the population.
When Melbourne, then called the Port Philip Settlement, and the surrounding area was being settled by European settlers in the 1830s, the area was a part of the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of Sydney in the Archdiocese of Sydney. In 1839, John Polding, the Archbishop of Sydney, placed Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan in charge of the Port Philip Settlement and the first Mass was celebrated in Melbourne on Pentecost Sunday, 15 May 1839. The entire population of Port Philip in 1841 was 11,738 and the Catholics numbered 2,411.