Update (Jul 15, 2008):
The Federal Court of Australia has overturned a special law introduced to prevent protesters "annoying" Catholic pilgrims during Pope Benedict XVI's visit in Sydney for the World Youth Day celebrations.
The judges ruled that there was "no intelligible boundary" on what "causes annoyance." However, protesters can still be fined if they "inconvenience" participants as the law - passed by the New South Wales government - still stands.
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Thousands of protestors are planning to rally and hand out condoms this Saturday on Oxford Street and Anzac Parade ahead of an overnight vigil and papal Mass at Randwick racecourse to rally against the church's attitude homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
News of the regulations have spurred more creative slogans - a T-shirt by Sydney designer Tristan Parry reads: ''5,500 dollars - a small price to pay for annoying Catholics.'' The Sydney Morning Herald online carried a picture of a more loaded T-shirt reading: ''The Pope touched me Down Under,'' a pun on Catholic sex abuse scandals which dog the pontiff on his travels. Under the temporary regulations, a person may be fined A$5,500 for causing annoyance at a World Youth Day event.
The sweeping new regulations were announced by the New South Wales police to limit behaviour that may cause "annoyance or inconvenience to participants" during Pope Benedict XVI's first visit in Australia to celebrate World Youth Day (WYD).
The laws will apply in the month of July; and in WYD-declared areas including areas of downtown Sydney, transport interchanges and the pilgrimage route, also taking in a radius of 500 metres around the zones.
The World Youth event was founded by the Pope's predecessor, John Paul II in 1986 and will run from 15 to 20 July. Billed as the largest event Australia has ever hosted, it will culminate in a Papal Mass in front of an expected 500,000 people at Randwick racecourse next Sunday.
Two activists from the NoToPope Coalition of gay and lesbian, religious, and atheist groups have challenged the validity of the powers in court. The court is expected to hand down its judgment on Tuesday, the official start of the six-day WYD event.
"These laws are very draconian and we have the right to protest and say our piece," Rachel Evans, organiser of the NoToPope Coalition, told reporters outside the court.
"Criticising WYD ethics includes promoting contraception, access to abortion and conducting any criticism of the reactionary views of some Catholic Church leaders."
"We're not planning to get into any trouble, we don't want to condemn Catholic youth for being Catholics. We want to condemn the Pope for being homophobic," Evans was quoted as saying in a media report.
She said the Pope's teachings contributed to 67,000 women dying every year from backyard abortions and a suicide rate among gay youth that is seven times the average.
Anna Katzman, the president of the New South Wales Bar Association, said making someone's inconvenience the basis of a criminal offense was "unnecessary and repugnant."
"If I was to wear a T-shirt proclaiming that 'World Youth Day is a waste of public money' and refuse to remove it when an officer... asks me to, I would commit a criminal offense," Katzman said. "How ridiculous is that?"
The event is said to cost taxpayers some A$150 million.
As he did during his US trip in April, Benedict is expected to offer apologies to Australian victims of sexual abuse by priests. Meanwhile, Australia's senior Catholic leader, Sydney Archbishop George Pell, came under fire last week following the reopening of a 25-year-old sexual abuse case.
In 2003, Pell sent a letter to Anthony Jones in which he dismissed Jones' complaint of rape against Father Terrence Goodall despite a church investigation that upheld the allegations. Pell said Tuesday that his letter was "badly worded" but stood by his conclusion that the act had been consensual. He said he based his decision on Jones' age - he was 29 - at the time of the alleged rape and Goodall's Goodall's insistence that the act had been consensual.