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The Catholic Media in Australia - Be Surprised!
News Note - February 19, 2004

Over the years, The Australian AIDS Fund Inc., a recognised Melbourne-based non profit Catholic AIDS charity, has variously paid for advertising within the Catholic media as well as submitting and having editorial contributions published - the most recent editorial contribution being our widely published defence of the then Archbishop Pell as he awaited the outcome of a sex abuse charge levelled against him.

"The Australian" newspaper gave my letter "Pell must be judged, not pre-judged" top billing in its Letters to the Editor section on August 22, 2002, and it was subsequently picked up by his biographer and prominently reprinted in Archbishop Pell's biography, 'George Pell'.

The Melbourne Catholic Journal, "KAIROS"

"Kairos" also carried the same article in full.

That said, we draw the public's attention to a later instruction by Melbourne's Archbishop Hart that his archdiocesan journal Kairos was to no longer carry any advertising material submitted by us. This was in the face of our advertising and editorial record over many years, even back to the days of its predecessor, "The Advocate". The Archbishop's order included the cancellation of one of our promotional advertisements that Kairos had already been accepted for publication and which had invited us to advertise. The archbishop's intervention left the advertising manager in confusion and unable to explain.

The Sydney Catholice Newspaper, "The Catholic Weekly"

Archbishop Hart's office also ensured that Sydney's Catholic Weekly refused us advertising access, a move made in the absence of the then Archbishop Pell.

The Nationally Circulated Journal, "Eureka Street"

The prestigious and nationally circulated Catholic journal, Eureka Street, carried an advertisement for us in October, 2003, after we'd accepted its invitation to submit advertising for that issue which featured a review of HIV/AIDS in Australia across the past 20 years.

Most recently, we submitted a further advertisement to Eureka Street in the form of an Open Invitation to the Catholic Bishops of Australia to have a special national collection taken up on this year's Easter Sunday (2004) in support of the world's people living with HIV/AIDS - in response to the Pope's 2004 Lenten Message which draws attention to the plight of those, especially children, with AIDS.

Having been supplied with our advertising text, Eureka Street subseqently accepted our advertisement - in writing.

It was to be a prominent half page display advertisement inside the front cover and accepted for its March, 2004, edition.

A week later, we were advised by phone that the advertisement would not be published. No explanation was offered.

"The Green Book" The Annual Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy

This is a nationally circulated directory that's published around Easter each year for The National Council of Priests by a South Australian publisher, MediaCom.

Its outside cover page proclaims the NCP as a "sign of unity (an) instrument of peace"

It has carried our promotional HIV/AIDS Awareness resource advertisements for years and years.

On February 16th, 2004, I contacted the publisher's office to check on the lodgement date for this year's advertising material - only to be told that it had been instructed by the NCP not to approach us any more for advertising.

The following panel shows you the paid advertisement the Directory carried for us last year - to which we had hoped this year we could have added an appeal for the nation's Catholic Bishops to consider a national gold coin collection on the Sunday closest to World AIDS Day on December 1st to help support people living with HIV/AIDS, especially on Australia's geographic doorstep.


2003 Advertisement was as follows: