Australian bishop: religious faith is "denigrated and marginalised"

(Vatican Radio) A Church conference in Australia that is aiming to refresh, enliven and re-energise people in their faith. That's the hope of Australian Bishop Peter Ingham of Wollongong as the Church's first national conference on new evangelisation , entitled "Proclaim 2012," gets underway this week near Sydney. The keynote speaker there will be Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the newly formed Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation.

Bishop Ingham is a member of the Australian Church's commission on Mission and Faith Formation and he spoke to Vatican Radio's Susy Hodges about the very challenging environment faced by the Catholic Church in Australia's highly secularised society.

Listen to the extended interview with Bishop Ingham of Wollongong:

Asked about the aims of the three -day conference, Bishop Ingham said it will showcase modern forms of communications as possible instruments of this new evangelisation. He said this is particularly important because of the negative image religion sometimes gets nowadays: "At times ," he explained, "people get discouraged because religious faith and the values of Christianity are being denigrated and marginalised in our society."

Bishop Ingham said the conference "Proclaim 2012" is hoping "to refresh, enliven and re-energise people in their faith" and they will be tapping into peoples' enthusiasm to get "fresh ideas, fresh goals." Asked what he believes is the biggest challenge facing the Church as it launches this new evangelisation drive, the bishop said he believes the clerical sex abuse is the most difficult and challenging issue, because as he put it, "this gets thrown up at us all the time."