 | ||
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) is the national episcopal conference of the Catholic bishops of Australia. Formation of the ACBC was approved by the Holy See on 21 June 1966.
Contents
Organisation
The conference has a president and a vice-president, a permanent committee, various bishops commissions and a general secretariat. The commissions deal with subjects such as canon law, justice, ecology and development and pastoral life.
Member bishops come from 34 dioceses and ordinariates from 28 territorial dioceses and from 6 other structures, specifically the Eastern Catholic dioceses for Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite and Ukrainian Catholics; a military ordinariate; and an Anglican ordinariate, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.
Archbishop Denis Hart, Metropolitan Archbishop of Melbourne, was elected as the president of the ACBC at the bishops’ plenary in May 2012. The previous president of the conference was Archbishop Philip Wilson who was elected to a two-year term in 2006 and re-elected in 2008 and 2010.
The secretariat is based in Canberra under the management of the Reverend Brian Lucas. The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference meets at least annually.
Activities
In May 2015 the conference produced a booklet entitled, "Don't mess with Marriage".