Diocese of Port Pirie
The Diocese of Port Pirie is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Catholic Church in Australia. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Adelaide, erected in 1887 covering the Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas, Flinders Ranges, Nullarbor Plain, and Mid and Far North regions of South Australia, Australia.
History
The Diocese of Port Augusta was canonically erected by Pope Leo XIII on 10 May 1887, the same day the pope elevated the See of Adelaide to a metropolitan archdiocese and placed the new diocese in its province. On 5 August 1951 the seat of the diocese was moved from Port Augusta to Port Pirie, with the name of the diocese being also changed.Bishops
The following men have been Bishops of Port Pirie or any of its precursor titles:Coadjutor bishop
- Francis Peter de Campo †
Other priest of this diocese who became bishop
- Francis Augustin Henschke †, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Adelaide in 1937
Sexual abuse cases
The Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed that Port Pirie was the third-worst diocese in the country, with 14.1% of its priests accused of abuse.In 2007, Father Charles Barnett was arrested in Jakarta, Indonesia where he had fled in 1995, and extradited to Australia. Barnett pled guilty in 2009 to three child sex charges for events between 1977 and 1985 at Crystal Brook and Port Pirie. He was sentenced for a fourth crime occurring in 1994 and was rearrested in for other crimes after his release.