Bishop of Cairns
Bishop Joseph John Caddy is Bishop of Cairns, Australia. He was born on 14 January 1960 and was born and raised in Melbourne. He completed ecclesiastical studies at Corpus Christi Seminary in Melbourne, holds a Bachelor of Theology from the Melbourne College of Divinity, and obtained a licentiate in social sciences from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he studied Catholic social teaching, social ethics, and economics. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Melbourne on 25 August 1990. After priestly ordination, Bishop Caddy served as parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Maidstone from 1990 to 1993; chaplain of the prisons in Victoria from 2002 to 2013; administrator and CEO of CatholicCare for Greater Melbourne, Geelong, Gippsland, and the archdiocese from 2004 to 2017; parish priest of All Saints in Fitzroy from 2014 to 2016 and of Saint Mary in St. Kilda East from 2016 to 2019; episcopal vicar for social services from 2016; vicar general from 2019; and parish priest of Saint Carthage in Parkville from 2021. He was engaged in Victorian and national policy and program development in the areas of homelessness, youth justice, refugees and asylum seekers, disaster response, drug and alcohol treatment, and local government. In June 2018 he was recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours list when he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division for significant service to the community through a wide range of social welfare initiatives and policy reforms, and to the Catholic Church in Australia. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference source records the ordination-service livestream date as August 15, 2024.