Diocesan
Background
"A new diocese is like an infant born of the Catholic Church. It carries the genuine characteristics of the mother; its faith, its spirituality, its discipline, its mission. But it also has its individual features, in our case, the features native to the Catholic community in western Sydney." These words were used by the first Bishop of Parramatta, Most Rev. Bede Heather, on the establishment of the Diocese in 1986.
The Diocese of Parramatta takes in seven local government divisions: Baulkham Hills Shire, Blacktown City, the City of the Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury Shire, the Municipality of Holroyd, Parramatta City and Penrith City and parts of Wollondilly and Liverpool - a total of 48 parishes and more than 74 primary and secondary schools.
Parramatta was chosen as the seat of the Diocese due to its role in the early European settlement of Australia, its size as a commercial and administrative centre and its pivotal position in the communications that link the West with other parts of Sydney. It is contemporary urban Australia in miniature. It has a parish as old as St Matthew's Windsor, established in 1832, and burgeoning suburbs in the environs of Blacktown, St Marys, Penrith, Richmond and Castle Hill.
Parramatta had a very significant role to play in the origins of religious life in Australia, and has been vastly enriched by the contribution of religious in many different fields right down through the years of its Catholic history.
Religious congregations have continued to make an irreplaceable contribution to the work of God in the Parramatta Diocese. Today we find Sisters and Brothers working in social ministries with the unemployed, refugees, youth, homeless people, people with AIDS, women suffering from domestic violence, single mothers, the aged, mentally ill people; in a variety of health care services; in spiritual direction, retreat work and counselling; in social justice ministries; in parish work.
In the Parramatta diocese there are representatives from 11 congregations of clerical religious, from 32 congregations or secular institutes of women and from 5 congregations of religious brothers.
