Vicar General

Fr Tony Kerin spent his formative years in Clayton, going to school at St Peter’s Primary and then De La Salle College in Malvern. The eldest of Leo and Claire Kerin’s nine children, he has four sisters and four brothers. After Year 12, he spent two years at Corpus Christi College at Werribee, and when the college moved to Clayton, he moved back too, completing his seminary training there and being ordained for the Melbourne Archdiocese in August 1977.

In 1978, Fr Tony graduated from the Melbourne College of Divinity (now University of Divinity) with a bachelor of theology degree. He worked as an assistant priest in the Bennettswood, Geelong and Werribee parishes until 1986, when he moved to Rome to undertake studies in canon law, returning in August 1988 with a master’s degree in canon law and a graduate diploma in Latin literature from the Gregorian University.

Fr Tony worked full time for 18 years at the Tribunal of the Catholic Church. He was the Associate Judicial Vicar and remains a judge of the Tribunal for Victoria and Tasmania, and an appeal court judge for ecclesiastical cases from interstate and New Zealand. He is a past president of the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand. He is also a past president of the Catholic Society for Marriage Education and has toured internationally speaking at conferences. He is a past president of the Corpus Christi Priests’ Association, the alumni organisation for Corpus Christi College.

He was a chaplain to the Athletes’ Village for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, parish priest at St Martin de Porres, Avondale Heights, from 2002 to 2014, and parish priest at Greater Box Hill from 2014 to 2024.

A keen skier, Fr Tony was inaugural chaplain to the Interdenominational Alpine Chapel at Mt Buller and has spent winter Saturdays ministering there since 1993. He has also been a PADI-certified scuba rescue diver with a special interest in underwater photography. A member of the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Yarra Yarra Golf Club, he is still a member of the only AFL club with a feast day in the Roman Catholic Calendar (1 November). He relaxes by noodling Hendrix-inspired blues on his Fender Stratocaster.