Joselito Cerna Asis knew that moving to Melbourne from the Philippines to become a chaplain would come with some big changes. But he wasn't prepared for one particular aspect of the culture shock he felt — namely, that priests are treated very differently in Australia.
"We are all spoiled in the Philippines … [Parishioners] treat the priest just like they're a king.
"There are volunteers to clean the church, to take care of the priests, to cook, to do the laundry, to be the drivers."
In Australia, priests are expected to do many of these tasks, Monsignor Asis says, and he's taken up such responsibilities gladly.
His move to Australia tells the story of a wider trend.
Monsignor Asis is among the 1.37 million Catholic immigrants who has helped temper Catholicism's precipitous decline in Australia.
In Australia, the percentage of Catholics reached a peak in 1991 at 27.3 per cent of the population.
Today, that figure has sunk to 20 per cent, according to the latest census — the lowest since the 1930s Depression.
Of those numbers, just 8 per cent — roughly 417,000 people — attend church on an average weekend, 2021 figures from the National Centre for Pastoral Research show.
And while Catholicism remains the biggest Christian denomination in Australia, this is in no small part thanks to immigrants, which make up 27 per cent of Australia's Catholic population.
Here, the Philippines has played an outsized role. The number of Filipino-born Catholics in Australia trebled in just one generation, from less than 62,000 in 1991 to 216,000 in 2021, propelling the Philippines to the top-ranked birthplace for Australia's overseas-born Catholics.
But while Australian Catholicism may owe a debt to its immigrant followers, Monsignor Asis says Australia has deeply shaped him, too.
"I cannot insist that, 'I am a priest, and you should give me service or respect,'" the 64-year-old says.
"I have to serve other people. That's the great lesson from working in Australia."
It's a learning also embodied by Pope Francis — the late leader who earned a reputation for being a...
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