Welcome to the 2011-2012 edition of The Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia.

This year will be a year of profound grace and hope for the Church in Australia as we implement the changes to the Roman Missal into parish life. In a spirit of generosity, I encourage you to embrace it, and allow it to bring much needed renewal to the life of this Church and enliven the participation in its liturgies.

It is my hope too that the New Missal will help us grow in recognition that we are all part of the Body of Christ.

The Official Directory of the Church is a fundamental tool for anyone working within the Church and for those in the wider community who seek to make contact.

This directory aims to facilitate more than just communication in this Church between the names and numbers contained in its pages, but to showcase the vast ministries in which the people of God engage through the Catholic Church in this country, in fields of parish life, healthcare, education, media, social welfare, justice and much more.

The names contained within this book are just the tip of the iceberg, representing just a small fraction of the five million Catholics in this country. Through our Baptism, we are all called and gifted into the life of this Church.

The mission of the Church in the world today is to respond to the call of Christ to love one another and to love God. As a community bound together in the Eucharist, the complete self-giving of Christ to each one of us, we are called to show that love to humanity through our words and actions.

Pope Benedict XVI says to us in his message for the World Day of Communication 2011 that new horizons once thought unimaginable are now open to us through the various means of new communications technology, and that these demand reflection. "As with every other fruit of human ingenuity, the new communications technologies must be placed at the service of the integral good of the individual and of the whole of humanity. If used wisely, they can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being."

I commend The Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia to you and take this opportunity to thank Sally Heath & Christine Moore of the National Council of Priests for the work they have put into its compilation and publication. It is no small task keeping abreast of the never-ending changes in people, structures and contact details for these 21,000 plus entries.

I believe this directory can help us to strive even further in our communion as a Body of Christ in service of one another and I pray for Christ's blessing on the work of all those mentioned it its pages.