Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand

Canon Law Society of Australia & New Zealand

Australian Business Number (ABN): 97 006 511 753

Australian Company Number (ACN): 006 511 753

Registered Office:  Level 7, 133 Liverpool Street, Sydney 2000

President:
         Sr Maria Casey RSJ

Committee Members:
        Rev Peter Blayney
        Rev Paul Clark
        Rev John Harrison
        Rev John Salvano

Company Secretary:
        Mr Michael Sinclair

The Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand began - as do many good things - in the late night conversation of good friends with a common interest. It began in Rome about 1960 in St. Peter's College, that forcing house of canonists in the days before Vatican II. In 1956 Owen Oxenham, John Clarke and I, newly-arrived innocents abroad, went to call on Archbishop Sigismondi, Secretary of Propaganda. He asked what we intended to study. In the manner of canon lawyers of the time Owen and John announced confidently that they were there for law. I was amused and a little puzzled when Sigismondi demanded : "Why do people come here from all over the world to study the Gospel of Gasparri and not the Gospel of Jesus Christ?"