All The Tools You Need To Build Successful Child Safe Faith Groups

Australia is a secular, multicultural and multi-faith society that is home to more than 170 religious groups. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander systems of spiritual belief existed across Australia at the time of colonisation and continue today. Since the first national census in 1911, most of the Australian population included in the census has reported affiliation with a Christian religion. However, there has been a long-term decline in the proportion of the population identifying as Christian, and a steady increase in the number of people reporting ‘no religion’ in the census. The Anglican Church remained the largest Christian denomination in Australia until the mid-1980s, when it was overtaken by the Catholic Church. Patterns of immigration since the Second World War and particularly since the beginning of the 1970s have seen an increase in religious diversity in Australia and a steady rise in affiliation with non-Christian religions.

Currently, there are 33 Catholic dioceses in Australia, consisting of 5 metropolitan archdioceses, 21 suffragan dioceses, 2 non-metropolitan archdioceses, and 5 Eastern Rite dioceses. The 2018-19 Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia lists 1394, including 84 belonging to Eastern Catholic Churches.

The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second-largest church in Australia after the Roman Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. As of 2016, the Anglican Church of Australia had more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. The Anglican Church of Australia consists of 23 dioceses and over 810 churches.