The Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese has won an appeal against an order to pay $500,000 in damages to a terminally-ill man who was found to have been sexually abused by a priest 56 years ago.

NOVOCASTRIANS are "crumbling from the inside out" thanks to the devastating impacts of historic sex offences within the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese, survivors and advocates say.

The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle will subdivide land behind one of its Hunter schools to create a new housing estate in one ...