Funeral celebrant out for commentary two celebrants he considered outstanding, Brian McInerney and Rick Barclay. International acknowledgment was provided by a comprehensive article in Time Magazine (September 2004) reporting that in the "liberal" cities of Melbourne (Australia) and Auckland (New Zealand) civil celebrants "conduct substantially more than half of the funerals." It reported that before 1973 only clergy funerals were available to the general public in Australia and New Zealand. The article describes celebrant funerals as "intimate and personalised". But it also cited an alternative point of view by atheist sociologist Mira Crouch who stated that celebrant funerals were "mawkish and sentimental".
Celebrant (Australia) registry office officials and those conducted by independent marriage celebrants. Similarly, statistics of religious marriages only give separate figures for the two largest denominations, Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Until 1994, Celebrant Training was mainly achieved by informal but effective mentoring of new celebrants by the more experienced. This was augmented by seminars and conferences organised by the main celebrant organisations. Significant progress in understanding of the celebrant role was achieved at the annual "Pallotti" live-in conferences which took place at Warburton in Victoria from 1994 to 1999. International lecturers included Mary Hancock from New Zealand and David Oldfield from Washington