The Catholic community in Melbourne is made up of a rich tapestry of people, many and varied, of all ages, cultures and backgrounds from the greater Melbourne area. Although we come from all different walks of life, we are united by our faith and our love for God and neighbour. We strive to live our lives according to the way of Jesus Christ in our homes, our workplaces and throughout the wider community.
We draw strength from our parish communities—where we care for one another and the wider community—and in the deep love of God who knows and loves us deeply and passionately. As friends of Jesus, we strive to live out the Gospel message and make him known in our local communities. Though we are by no means perfect, we trust in God’s steadfast love to achieve in our midst, the great things Jesus promised.
We are blessed with over 200 parishes, more than 300 schools and a wide range of organisations and agencies that assist us in caring for each other and the wider Melbourne community. If you’d like to know more about who we are, keep exploring the website and know that you are very welcome to join us at one of our parish communities.
It all starts in the family
In a particular way, it is in the context of our families, and the many ways we express this as Christians, that faith continues to be fostered and nourished. At a time when family life – and even the basic ideas of marriage and family – are being deeply challenged, surely it is our time to step into the breach, to offer a renewed vision of family life that is informed by our Christian faith and supported by our Christian outreach.
Accompanying our youth
Without a doubt, our youth and young adults are the principle focus of our generation. We are parents and leaders, carers and educators, friends and colleagues, and our young people need our loving accompaniment, and we need their joyful passion. We cannot be the Church that we are meant to be without them, for they are for us now what we are to be in the future: not a Church for the young, but a young Church.
Local neighbourhoods of grace
How might we might locate and nurture faith? It is in the local, the intimate, and the personal that people are still encountering Jesus Christ, and where we can channel our energies. Our places of faith life and formation, our communities of pastoral outreach and charity – these local neighbourhoods of grace – are the truly gospel locations for us today.
Being a Church for the poor
If we stay only at the surface level of justice ‘talk’, and fail to move deeper into the doing of charity, the meaning of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats will be lost to us, and we will not be the leaven of goodness our society needs. So, it is to the poor, the broken, the abused and the survivors, the marginalised and those who live with disability, that we have a special calling, humbly walking with them, and finding ways of hope.
