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Author: Paul Collins

  • RELIGION

    Best of 2022: What did the Plenary Council achieve?

    • Paul Collins
    • 05 January 2023

    The Plenary Council (PC) is over and the time has come for assessments. What did it achieve? In positive terms it brought together an enormously generous group of people whose dedication to Catholicism is extraordinary. It also demonstrated the diverse complexity of the community. 

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  • RELIGION

    What is a welcoming church?

    • Paul Collins
    • 20 September 2022
    5 Comments

    The word ‘Catholic’ is derived from the Greek Καθολικός (katholikos) meaning universal, of the whole, and the entire tradition is the very opposite of sectarian, particularist, narrow. It is most truly itself when it’s embracing and inclusive.

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  • RELIGION

    What did the Plenary Council achieve?

    • Paul Collins
    • 12 July 2022
    33 Comments

    The Plenary Council (PC) is over and the time has come for assessments. What did it achieve? In positive terms it brought together an enormously generous group of people whose dedication to Catholicism is extraordinary. It also demonstrated the diverse complexity of the community. 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    A Vatican-inspired theological revolution

    • Paul Collins
    • 28 June 2022
    7 Comments

    A basic principle was laid down in the pope’s recent Apostolic Constitution entitled Praedicate evangelium that is profoundly important with far-reaching consequences for the whole church. This principle states that any baptised Catholic ‘can preside over a dicastery,’ that is run a Vatican department. Previously only ordained clerics could do this.

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  • RELIGION

    Lay community key to reforming Catholicism

    • Paul Collins
    • 04 September 2019
    42 Comments

    Anyone in the past who called attention to these issues was accused at best of exaggeration'. Getting Back on Mission points out that until the church accepts good governance characterised by accountability, transparency, inclusion and a recognition of the equality of women, it will continue its culture of clericalism and secrecy.

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  • RELIGION

    Encyclical's groundbreaking critique of technology

    • Paul Collins
    • 15 July 2015
    9 Comments

    While Francis has no time for technological solutions and 'fixes' for complex ecological problems, he is no techo-Luddite. What he does is link technological knowledge to power and says that those with this knowledge and the economic resources to use it, gain 'an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.'

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  • RELIGION

    Francis puts environment above short-term politics

    • Paul Collins
    • 19 June 2015
    24 Comments

    Laudatio si is an extraordinary document addressed to 'every living person on this planet'. Ecological issues are no longer an after thought but up there with social justice and equity in an incisive, practical, realistic and far-reaching encyclical that tackles the most important issues facing us honestly and with absolute integrity. It will upset a lot of apple carts in the Church and in the world.

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  • RELIGION

    Francis moving Church from pale green to deep green

    • Paul Collins
    • 20 January 2015
    43 Comments

    Pope Francis has been hailed for his ‘rattling’ and ‘upsetting’ Catholic climate change sceptics and politicians. His predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI were ahead of most politicians on the issue, but essentially they underestimated the magnitude and urgency of the environmental problems we face. It is likely that Francis will make a decisive effort to confront climate change during 2015.    

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  • RELIGION

    The Vatican's Francis Revolution gains pace

    • Paul Collins
    • 11 November 2014
    23 Comments

    An important power shift occurred in Rome at the weekend, and it has a genuine Australian connection. The nuncio in Canberra Archbishop Paul Gallagher was named Secretary for Relations with States, which will put him third in charge at the Vatican. He has been popular here because he has kept in touch with pastoral life, having volunteered to help out in the far-flung western NSW of Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes during his first Easter in Australia.

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  • RELIGION

    A conundrum for Pope Francis

    • Paul Collins
    • 14 October 2014
    49 Comments

    Melbourne's Archbishop Denis Hart told Vatican Radio that the Bishops currently attending the Synod on the Family in Rome 'want to engage with people and see the needs of families ...  The bishops have been emphasising that we are pastors'. This emphasis indicates Pope Francis' challenge when he asks the bishops to assume the level of leadership necessary to act collegially with him.

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  • RELIGION

    Jury still out on Francis the game-changer

    • Paul Collins
    • 13 March 2014
    12 Comments

    The greatest danger is that we expect too much from Francis. He brings a new perspective that has little to do with the preoccupations of the developed world. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that he is a closet progressive. The other danger is that he could turn out to be all show and no substance. His 'Gang of Eight' has not even begun to address the diabolically difficult problems embedded in reforming the curial structures of the Vatican.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate change and Australia's weather on steroids

    • Paul Collins
    • 04 February 2013
    38 Comments

    Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said that, coming from Australia where climate change denial 'fills the air', he finds it significant that world leaders see climate change as the world's most important concern, even more than the economy. Recent extreme weather events, including the floods in Queensland, are symptoms of long-term climate change.

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