CARDINAL George Pell has clamped down on a group of liberal Catholics, banning them from using a church venue for a conference and preventing two priests from addressing the meeting.
He has also stopped Bishop Pat Power of the Canberra and Goulburn archdiocese from celebrating mass at the conference, which was to hear from a representative of Rainbow Sash, a Catholic gay support group.
Cardinal Pell told venue organisers for the annual conference of Australian Reforming Catholics they did not have approval to use MacKillop Place in North Sydney for their meeting next month.
"The Liberal Party does not hold its conference at a Labor Party branch office," he said.
Bishop Power told The Australian he would obey Cardinal Pell's directive.
"I agreed not to celebrate mass because it would be making the eucharist into a symbol of contestation and I wasn't prepared to do that."
The Sisters of St Joseph, which runs the MacKillop venue, has been forced to find an alternative site for the conference at the Independent Theatre in North Sydney.
"(The cardinal) felt that church teachings would be attacked and denied at the conference and indicated that no church property would be suitable for the meeting," said congregational leader of the Sisters of St Joseph, Sister Katrina Brill.
"I respected his authority but disagreed with his position," she said.
"There must be a place to discuss current issues no matter how contentious they are. The Sisters of St Joseph will always stand with those who get pushed to the margins."
President of Australian Reforming Catholics Barbara Campbell said the group was dedicated to discussion and was not a "dissenting group".
The group's only position, she said, was the conviction that sensus fidelium -- whereby church law is dictated by the whole body of the faithful receiving and accepting a certain doctrine -- be respected.
"One of my friends is praying that one day (Cardinal Pell) will become a Christian; he seems to be running the church like a private club where he is the company director," Ms Campbell said.
Ms Campbell said the cardinal's decision was based on an assumption. "The name on the program that might have caught his eye was Michael Kelly from the Rainbow Sash movement," she said. "Kelly has been a thorn in his side and he feels he would be attacking and denying the teachings of the church, but how he could tell that from simply reading the program I don't know."
Mr Kelly has been a longtime opponent of the Catholic Church's position on openly gay members of the congregation, accusing church leaders of being run by "defective heterosexuals".
Archdiocesan priests Father Peter Maher and Father Gerald Gleeson were also instructed by Cardinal Pell not to address the meeting.
Father Maher said Cardinal Pell directed him not to attend the meeting on the grounds it would lend "respectability" to a gathering "where dissent from Catholic teachings" would be expressed.
Cardinal Pell allegedly said that Australian Reforming Catholics would not be welcome on any church land.
"He demanded that I didn't speak and made it clear that it was a direct order," Father Maher said. "But I also told him that I didn't agree with him but that I would comply under obedience."