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Author: Paul Collins

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate view from a nation doomed to drown

    • Paul Collins
    • 14 December 2012
    15 Comments

    Kiribati, situated in the central Pacific Ocean and home to 101,998 people — more than half of them Catholic — will be the first country to be drowned by global warming. While we wring our hands and climate sceptics pretend there is no problem, on Kiribati people are already in the midst of a climate change disaster. 

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  • RELIGION

    The truth about the Vatican's money

    • Paul Collins
    • 15 August 2012
    35 Comments

    People often talk about the 'enormous wealth of the Vatican'. Some think the Vatican owns all the Church's worldwide real estate, others that all that art could be sold for the poor, others that the Vatican is corrupt and busy laundering vast sums of Mafia money through the 'Vatican Bank'. Now for the first time we have some hard facts.

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  • EDUCATION

    Thought under threat at Australia's universities

    • Paul Collins
    • 23 May 2012
    27 Comments

    The Australian National University vice-chancellor's proposal to asset-strip Canberra's School of Music prompted the biggest university demonstration in 30 years. ANU isn't the only uni in financial stress, thanks to successive governments' under-funding of tertiary education and user-pays attitude.

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  • MEDIA

    The commercialisation of the ABC

    • Paul Collins
    • 05 August 2011
    22 Comments

    Increasingly the ABC is 'outsourcing' material to commercial production companies. Interest group Friends of the ABC describes this as 'privatisation by stealth' and is calling for a public inquiry. All who value the ABC and its role as a public broadcaster need to support this call.

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  • RELIGION

    Australian Catholics facing disaster

    • Paul Collins
    • 03 March 2011
    46 Comments

    The troubles facing Australian Catholicism have been documented in a new report. When people focus on this most think of sexual abuse. In fact this is more a symptom than the actual core of the problem. 

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  • RELIGION

    'Sheila' MacKillop boosts Catholic brand

    • Paul Collins
    • 19 November 2010
    9 Comments

    This week it was reported that the canonisation of Mary MacKillop boosted enquiries at Australia's Catholic Enquiry Centre by 63 per cent in the past year. The saturation media coverage of the event suggests the Church may not be as much 'on the nose' as is popularly thought.

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  • RELIGION

    Geoffrey Robertson's Catholicism for dummies

    • Paul Collins
    • 11 October 2010
    26 Comments

    Robertson may be a celebrity QC, but historian he is certainly not. He touts the notion that the Vatican is not a real state and that as a consequence Benedict XVI should not be granted immunity from prosecution for his alleged responsibility in covering up clerical sexual abuse.

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  • RELIGION

    The rise of Catholicophobia

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 September 2010
    39 Comments

    It's not that Catholicism has nothing to answer for, but the problem is that caricatures quickly become facts. Many Catholics have learned to 'cop it sweet', but there comes a point where you have to say something. The papal visit to the UK might just be it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott and Santamaria's undemocratic Catholicism

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 August 2010
    26 Comments

    Tony Abbott is wrong to suggest that B. A. Santamaria made Australian Catholicism 'more intellectual'. Santamaria embraced a form of doctrinaire conformism that is the death of thoughtful commitment. It would be worrying if this kind of integralist Catholicism infected contemporary public life.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Bushfire blame misses the point

    • Paul Collins
    • 04 August 2010
    16 Comments

    Sadly the Commission played the blame game. This happens after every major fire and originates in the need to find scapegoats. Neither Christine Nixon nor the others who copped the blame could have known they were dealing with a whole new era of firestorm.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The morality of population control

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 December 2009
    22 Comments

    It's hard not to sound misanthropic when discussing population. Conservatives accuse you of favouring abortion, contraception and sterilisation in developing countries. Progressives say you're a cultural imperialist diverting attention from social justice.

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  • MEDIA

    ABC's mainstream religion tested, found wanting

    • Paul Collins
    • 01 October 2009
    27 Comments

    Since the axing of The Religion Report, mainstream ABC news and current affairs programs have missed a range of important religious topics and events. It seems unlikely that General Manager Mark Scott will be able to maintain religion as a viable reality on the ABC.

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