Writer
Paul Collins
Paul Collins is an historian, broadcaster and writer. A Catholic priest for thirty-three years, he resigned from the active ministry in 2001 following a dispute with the Vatican over his book Papal Power (1997). He is the author of fifteen books. The most recent is Absolute Power. How the pope became the most influential man in the world (Public Affairs, 2018). A former head of the religion and ethics department in the ABC, he is well known as a commentator on Catholicism and the papacy and also has a strong interest in ethics, environmental and population issues.
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The Plenary Council has been a masterclass in avoiding the real problems in the Catholic Church.
The present model of the Catholic Church has far outlasted its relevance. The time has come for all Catholics to tell Rome loudly and clearly: the monarchical model isn’t fit for purpose and has to go. Continue reading »
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History lessons for critiques on Christianity
Before we worry too much about school students, it’s the adults who need remedial history lessons if two recent articles are anything to go by. Continue reading »
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Hans Kung: a theologian for everyone
Hans Küng died last Tuesday aged 93. I had the honour of knowing him as a friend. He was a rare breed: a theologian who spoke to people of diverse beliefs and none. Continue reading »
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Joe Biden’s Catholicism
With the exception of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, religion has not been a big deal for recent US presidents who were, at best, nominal Christians. For Joe Biden faith is central to who he is. Continue reading »
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George Pell could comment ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you’
Sensational news stories about Vatican finances are two-a-penny. But for the first time Australia features in a scandal with claims that since 2014 €1.4 billion (A$2.3 billion) of Vatican money ended-up in the Great South Land. Continue reading »
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Faith when matter really matters
Christmas is not about Santa Claus, consumerism, or even happy families. It’s about God’s radical entry into humanity in the person of Jesus. Continue reading »
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The Beginning of the End?
Is Pope Francis running out of steam? Will we ever see an end to Vatican financial scandals? And where is George in all of this? Continue reading »
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Archbishops, vaccines and COVID-19
The recent letter of the Sydney-based Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox archbishops on the ethics of the Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine has left many believers and the general community gobsmacked. Continue reading »
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Population ‘Bomb’ Already exploded
Like many commentators before him, Kevin Bain’s ‘Prospects for refugees and migrants if the population bomb goes bust’ (Pearls and Irritations, 23/7/20) assumes that population is a future problem, ignoring the fact that the world is already over-populated. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. First Step to a Better Church?
I must admit up-front that I’m not a fan of committee reports. They’re usually pedestrian and repetitious, even at the best of times. So, to be honest, I didn’t approach the 200-page Governance Review Project Team (GRPT) report The Light from the Southern Cross with much enthusiasm. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Back to Nature
It is five years this week since Pope Francis published perhaps the most radical and important papal encyclical ever issued, Laudato si’, mi’ Signore (‘Praise be to you, my Lord’) on ‘care for our common home.’ Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Meditating with J.S. Bach
There is no better way to meditate this week leading up to Easter than with J.S. Bach Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. COVID-19. A chance to rethink the deeper moral and human issues
We are part of nature and the most important lesson of COVID-19 is that it reminds us of our sheer vulnerability. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. A New Era of Fire Part 2
Never before have we experienced fires like the present. They challenge us to re-assess our whole approach to living in Australia. With global warming a reality, we now face some pretty stark options. Continue reading »
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Bushfires and the Culture War. Part 1
The bushfire culture wars have already begun. For some the current crisis is apocalypse now, for others it’s just an extreme example of business as usual on our incendiary continent. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Ten new papal electors
Last Sunday Pope Francis unexpectedly announced that on October 5 he would appoint thirteen new members to the college of cardinals from thirteen different countries, a truly international group. Ten of the new appointments are under the age of 80 and can therefore vote in a papal election. Significantly there were no Americans, and only Continue reading »
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Where to from here?
One persistent question that has been asked since the failure of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal last Wednesday has been: Why isn’t the Vatican acting to force him from the College of Cardinals and expel him from the priesthood? They moved with amazing speed in the case of Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, DC, after Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Give me a break!
Please, please, give me a break from Israel Folau! We’ve all heard more than enough about who’s going to hell. He can believe whatever he wants and he can blow his bags ad nauseam to his Pentecostal mates. But we don’t have to take it seriously. He’s a rugby footballer, for goodness sake, not a Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. A badly governed Church needs a new model. Catholicism continues to wrestle with the unrealized vision of the Second Vatican Council.
It is an understatement to say that Catholicism is in deep trouble. The sexual abuse tragedy and the secrecy and denial surrounding are obvious symptoms. A key element in the broader Church crisis is governance. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Parochialism Reigns Supreme
The Coalition, like many of those who voted for it, seem incapable of grasping the big-picture evidence required to deal with global warming. Morrison says he always believed in miracles, but unfortunately that’s not going to work for climate change. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Catholicism’s Year from Hell
Without a doubt the last twelve months have been Catholicism’s annus horribilis and, let me assure you, there’s still not much light at the end of the tunnel. Continue reading »
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BRIAN COYNE. A response to Paul Collins’ “The real crisis of Australian Catholicism”.
Paul Collins’ recent commentary, “The Real Crisis of Australian Catholicism”, raises some contradictory challenges for the future of the Catholic Church in Australia. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. The Best of 2018: The Real Crisis of Australian Catholicism.
It is patently obvious that Australian Catholicism is in crisis. The usual analysis is that this has been caused by the appalling mishandling and cover-up of child sexual abuse and the subsequent investigations of the Royal Commission. However, this is only a partial explanation. Catholicism’s problems have a much longer history and go much deeper. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. The On-going Threat of Fundamentalism
Religious fundamentalism is having an increasing influence on democratic societies, most obviously in the US, but also here in Australia. The so-called ‘religious freedom’ debate has re-ignited the culture wars that originate in fundamentalist demands to maintain a kind of ‘purity’ of doctrine. Previously in Australia church and state had worked out a modus vivendi, Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. ABC -Shenanigans at Ultimo’s Level Fourteen.
Monday’s Four Corners on the ABC’s management shenanigans—the Guthrie-Milne, she said-he said fiasco—and the failure of the rest of the ABC Board to own-up and answer publicly for their performance tells you everything about what’s wrong at the top of the national broadcaster. Its not imagined left-wing bias, or ‘inaccurate and unbalanced reporting’, or Emma Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!
I know its obnoxious to say “I told you so”, but I’m going to nevertheless. Back in June I told Pearls and Irritations readers that “the greatest danger to the ABC comes from within, from the board and the corporation’s management.” Last week’s events have proved me right. The current board represents a very narrow Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. The Sacking of Michelle Guthrie
Commentating on the sacking, former MD David Hill says that “no reasonable explanation” has been given as to why. While there’s some truth to that, I think we can begin to sort out why board chairman Justin Milne acted. And here its important to say that it probably largely was Milne, who was the dominant Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. Breaking the Seal.
Recently we’ve seen a slew of articles in the media, both informed and otherwise, on the question of the seal of confession. Already a couple of Australian governments have acted to enforce mandatory reporting on priests when sexual abuse of children is mentioned in confession. Federal Attorney General Christian Porter told his state and territory Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. No longer eight cents a day.
For a lumbering, slow-moving, accident prone government, the Liberals moved like Speedy Gonzales to reassure us that they wouldn’t “privatize” or “sell” the ABC as recommended by a Young Liberal motion at the recent Liberal federal council meeting. Energy minister Josh Frydenberg rushed in to assure us that “the ABC is an iconic national institution, Continue reading »
