The Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan

Suffragan Diocese

A suffragan diocese is a diocese in the Catholic Church that is overseen not only by its own diocesan bishop but also by a metropolitan bishop. The metropolitan is always an archbishop who governs his own archdiocese...

 Latin rite diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney is a Latin rite metropolitan archdiocese, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.Erected in 1842 and directly responsible to the Holy See, the Archdiocese is responsible for the suffragan dioceses of Armidale, Bathurst, Broken Bay, Lismore,...

, established in 1847, initially as the Diocese of Maitland, and then changed to the current name in 1995. The diocese covers the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Ordinaries

The following individuals have been elected as Roman Catholic Bishop of Maitland:

Order	Name	Date enthroned	Reign ended	Term of office	Reason for term end
1	Charles Henry Davis, OSB Order of Saint Benedict The Order of Saint Benedict is a Roman Catholic religious order of independent monastic communities that observe the Rule of St. Benedict. Within the order, each individual community maintains its own autonomy, while the organization as a whole exists to represent their mutual interests...  †	24 September 1846	17 May 1854		Died in office
2	James Murray †	1865	9 July 1909		Died in office
3	Patrick Dwyer †	9 July 1909	28 March 1931		Died in office
4	Edmund John Aloysius Gleeson, CSSR Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer is a Roman Catholic missionary Congregation founded by Saint Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, near Amalfi, Italy for the purpose of labouring among the neglected country people in the neighbourhood of Naples.Members of the Congregation, priests and brothers,...  †	28 March 1931	4 March 1956		Died in office
5	John Thomas Toohey †	4 March 1956	24 September 1975		Died in office
6	Leo Morris Clarke Leo Clarke (bishop) Bishop Leo Clarke was Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, Australia from 1976-1995. Bishop Clarke was ordained the sixth bishop of the Newcastle diocese in June 1976, after 27 years of service in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, where he served as priest and Master of...	10 April 1976	3 November 1995		Retired and appointed Bishop Emeritus of Maitland-Newcastle

The following individuals have been elected as Roman Catholic Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle:

Order	Name	Date enthroned	Reign ended	Term of office	Reason for term end
1	Michael Malone	3 November 1995	4 April 2011		Following a 2009 request by Malone for early retirement due to the impact of the sex abuse scandal, which was rejected by the Vatican, Malone resigned in 2011
2	William Wright	4 April 2011	present		n/a

Controversies

The diocese has been referred to as the "epicentre of Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia" due to a number of paedophile priests with extensive abuse records being jailed since 1997.

External links

• Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle