Melbourne, Archdiocese of

MELBOURNE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - It is located in the State of Victoria, in Australia, and is its capital. The first Mass was celebrated there by the Rev. Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan on 13 May 1839. The city was then called Port Philip and, together with its territory, formed part of the ecclesiastical province of Sydney, from which it was detached and erected as a suffragan diocese on 25 June 1847, at the same time as the dioceses of Maitland and Victoria, now Darwin (v.). It was elevated to an archdiocese on 31 March 1874; on the same date the dioceses of Ballarat and Sandhurst were detached from its territory, and on 10 May 1887 that of Sale, which are still its suffragans today.

The city of M. is, after Sydney, the most important in Australia. Throughout the archdiocese there are 124 parishes for the care of the 306,000 Catholics, of European origin, out of a population of 1,200,000 inhabitants, living in a territory of 16,000 sq km. The diocesan priests number 239 and the religious 230. Of these, 168 were born in Australia, the others mostly Irish. In the major seminary at Werribee 134 seminarians are studying. There are two university colleges: Newman College for male students (92 resident, 102 non-resident) and St. Mary's Hall for female students (36 resident). Of the twelve Catholic periodicals, the main ones are The advocate and The tribune, weeklies. The secondary schools number 71, with 13,082 pupils; the primary schools, 8 of which have secondary schools, number 163, with 33,016 pupils; the kindergartens 16, with 750 children. There are various charitable, social and Catholic Action institutions. - See plate XXXVIII.

Saverio Paventi