Julian Porteous
Julian Charles Porteous (born 5 June 1949) is a retired Australian Catholic bishop. He served as Archbishop of Hobart, Tasmania, from September 2013 until his resignation in June 2025, and is now Archbishop Emeritus. Before Hobart, he was Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney and Titular Bishop of Urusi from 2003 to 2013, and he also served as Episcopal Vicar for Renewal and Evangelisation in Sydney.
Born in Sydney, Porteous was ordained a priest on 7 September 1974 by James Darcy Freeman at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney. He was consecrated as a bishop on 3 September 2003 by George Pell, with co-consecrators Edward Bede Clancy and Bernard Cyril O’Grady.
In Hobart, he was installed as Archbishop on 17 September 2013.
Notable moments:
- In 2015 he distributed a booklet to about 12,000 Catholic-school families across Tasmania called Don’t Mess With Marriage, defending the Catholic view on marriage and saying that recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would be unfair to gay people. A complaint to the Australian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner was made, but it was withdrawn after six months.
- In 2022 he faced criticism for a church publication, Exposing the “modern green religion,” which included the views of geologist Ian Plimer, and was described by some as promoting climate-skepticism.
- In 2024 he published a public letter, We are Salt to the Earth, denouncing the woke movement and what he called a radicalised transgender lobby.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:33 (CET).