Diocese of Wagga Wagga
Catholic ecclesiastical territory
The Diocese of Wagga Wagga is a Latin Church suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney, established in 1917, covering the Riverina region of New South Wales in Australia.
St Michael's Cathedral is the seat of the Catholic Bishop of Wagga Wagga. On 12 September 2016, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Gerard Hanna due to health and age concerns and appointed Christopher Prowse to be the Apostolic Administrator. On 26 May 2020 Pope Francis announced that Bishop Mark Edwards OMI would be the sixth Bishop of Wagga Wagga, to be installed as Bishop on 22 July 2020 at St Michael's Cathedral.
Vianney College is the diocesan seminary.
Bishops
Bishops of Wagga Wagga
The following individuals have been elected as Roman Catholic Bishop of Wagga Wagga:
Coadjutor bishop
Francis Patrick Carroll (1967–1968)
Other priests of this diocese who became bishops
Edward Idris Cassidy, appointed nuncio and titular Archbishop in 1970; future Cardinal
Michael Robert Kennedy, appointed Bishop of Armidale in 2011
Cathedral
Located in Johnston Street, Wagga Wagga, St Michael's Cathedral is a large Gothic Revival styled sandstone cathedral built in two stages. The foundation stone of the first stage of the building comprising the nave and tower base, was laid on 26 April 1885. Completed between 1885 and 1887, the parish church was commissioned by Father Patrick Dunne and designed by architects Tappin, Gilbert & Dennehy, of Melbourne. The woodwork and carpentry was completed by Charles Hardy. In 1918, when the diocese was erected, St Michael’s became a cathedral.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Diocese of Wagga Wagga” is catholic ecclesiastical territory. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Diocese, Wagga and Catholic, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “catholic ecclesiastical territory” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q878003. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2016, 2020 and 1967.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Diocese of Wagga Wagga”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Diocese of Wagga Wagga primary sources, Diocese of Wagga Wagga archive and Diocese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Diocese of Wagga Wagga”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Diocese of Wagga Wagga” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.