Parish Priest
Peter Norden is the Parish Priest at St Ignatius' Church in Richmond and at St James' Church in North Richmond.
Peter has been a resident of Richmond for over sixteen years, but was appointed as Parish Priest on Friday 01 October 2004.
Father Peter Norden is also the Executive Director of the Australia Jesuit Foundation.
Peter has qualifications in Arts and Social Work from Melbourne University and a Masters Degree in Social Work from La Trobe University. After completing studies in Philosophy and Theology, he was ordained a Jesuit Priest in 1981.
Peter was the chaplain at the Sydney Jesuit College, St Ignatius Riverview from 1983-1984, and from 1985-1992 he was the Chaplain to Pentridge Prison in Melbourne and the Victorian correctional institutions.
He worked as the Policy Director of Catholic Social Services Victoria from 1992 until 1996 and then as Executive Director of Jesuit Social Services from 1997-2003.
In the last five years, Peter has been coordinating national social research on the distribution of disadvantage by postcode throughout Australia.
He is also involved in public policy work through his role as Convenor of the Victorian Criminal Justice Coalition.
Peter's appointment as Parish Priest is for an initial period of six years. He says:
I believe that the church has an important role in becoming more engaged in the life of the inner city.
Most of the residents of Richmond are not long-term residents and many are young people in their twenties and thirties. They are not known to be regular churchgoers! But our interest as a Christian community is in the lives of the local people, not just the religious dimension of their lives!
St Ignatius' is a prominent landmark in Richmond, but we need to make our community here much more inclusive, making it clear that there is an open door policy, and that all are welcome here.
In his spare time, Peter walks his Great Dane dogs, Zeus and Maximus and supports the Hawthorn Football Club where he is a Special Patron and the Old Xavierians Football Club where he is the chaplain.
