RSA Weekly For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia
Saturday 10 May 2025 Hi , With a new parliament in Canberra, we will step up our calls for broad secular reform. Check out the priorities for reform that we'll be asking the Albanese government and members of
parliament to pursue. New Pope; same old institution! Pope Leo XIV, in his first Mass, has claimed that having a lack of faith “is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life” and “appalling violations of human dignity”. Meanwhile, clerical abuse survivor groups and LGBTQ+ groups are now raising concerns about the new Pope. And, in the US, Catholic bishops are lobbying
against mandatory reporting laws that protect children from abuse. In Western Australia, at least one politician has spoken out against the church's behaviour in frustrating the efforts of abuse survivors to seek compensation. If you'd like to share your thoughts about articles in the RSA Weekly, email me on sigladman@rationalist.com.au. Si Gladman Executive Director, Rationalist Society of
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| RSA Christian lobby views cult inquiry as a threat to religious
freedom10 May: The Australia Christian Lobby has warned that a Victorian parliamentary committee inquiry into cults and their coercive practices could impact the “Christian church” and restrict freedom of religion. In some of the first public comments by a religious group in response to the establishment of the inquiry, Michelle Pearse, Managing Director of the ACL, told Christian radio this week that the inquiry was an example of how
religious freedoms could worsen in Australia. Read the full article |
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| RSA It’s time for the federal parliament to enact broad secular
reform7 May: A federal parliament controlled by a Labor majority, plus progressive independents and minor party representation, has a historic opportunity to pursue long-overdue secular reform for Australia. Religious privilege – mostly, Christian privilege – continues to pervade our nation’s public institutions, relegating non-religious Australians to being treated as second-class citizens. With the election of a new federal parliament,
we will now be stepping up our calls for broad secular reform. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Clergy molestation survivors concerned and insulted by election of Pope Leo XIV 10 May: Groups supporting clergy-molestation survivors say
they are gravely concerned and insulted by the election of Pope Leo XIV after he overcame questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career to become the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader. Read the full
article |
| SYDNEY MORNING HERALD Pope Leo XIV warns of ‘desperate’ global loss of faith in inaugural Mass 10 May: Pope Leo XIV has warned of a “desperate” crisis of
faith in his first Mass as head of the Catholic Church, urging the global institution to respond to rising secularism and to serve as a moral beacon amid growing reliance on materialism and technology. Read the full
article |
| NEWSWEEK Catholic Bishops Defy New US State Law To Report Child Abuse 9 May: Catholic bishops in Washington state are rejecting a new law that requires
clergy to report child sexual abuse revealed during the sacrament of confession—setting up a constitutional clash between church doctrine and state law. The law requires clergy of all faiths and traditions to come forward about child abuse, including priests who are told about abuse during confession. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Unearthed comments from new pope alarm LGBTQ+ Catholics 9 May: After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+
Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”. Read the full
article |
| ABC The Muslim Vote-endorsed candidates who scored numbers at the polls say they're just getting started 9 May: Labor may have retained the Western Sydney
seats of Blaxland and Watson with comfortable margins, but a closer look at the results reveals the party has lost some support. Independents endorsed by The Muslim Vote campaign secured enough of the primary vote to edge out the Liberal candidates and come second in the two-party preferred vote behind Labor frontbenchers Tony Burke and Jason Clare. Read the full article |
| CATHOLIC WEEKLY Sydneysiders turn out in their thousands in second anti-abortion rally 9 May: Thousands of people rallied for a second time outside New
South Wales Parliament House to oppose an “evil” bill that could force Catholic hospitals to provide abortions, while removing the conscientious objection rights of health care workers across the state. Read the full article |
| CANBERRA TIMES ACT govt forked out $440K to keep Brindabella running9 May: The ACT government paid Brindabella Christian School about $440,000 after the company entered voluntary
administration, as new details emerge about the total bill to creditors of the school. Read the full article |
| SYDNEY MORNING HERALD NSW Lib MP invokes Nazis in debate over widening access to abortion8 May: A moderate NSW Liberal MP has invoked the Nazis’ genocide of Jews in a parliamentary
debate over amending the state’s abortion laws, saying it was “bizarre” that the termination of a pregnancy was categorised “as a human right to healthcare”. Read the full article |
| WOMEN’S AGENDA Tony Abbott calls new bill to improve abortion care access an ‘assault on our rights’8 May: Just days after the Liberal party’s shattering election defeat, former
prime minister Tony Abbott appeared at an anti-abortion rally against a Greens bill to address barriers to abortion care in New South Wales, describing the bill as an “assault on our fundamental rights and freedoms”. Read the full
article |
| ABC Canberra Baptist Church expelled from association over same-sex marriage support5 May: The Canberra Baptist Church has been expelled from its denominational association after
almost 100 years for refusing to support a conservative stance on same-sex marriage. The New South Wales and ACT Baptist Association, which is governed by member churches, voted to disaffiliate the Canberra Baptist Church during its annual assembly in Sydney on Saturday night. Read the full article |
| SBS Albanese rules out renewing religious discrimination law push without 'broad support'1 May: The prime minister has ruled out reintroducing religious discrimination legislation
until fraying social cohesion improves. Asked by the SBS about whether a re-elected Labor government would place the bills back on the agenda, Albanese said the situation had not improved and expressed reluctance to re-ignite debate. Read the full article |
In a speech in the West Australian Parliament recently, Labor’s Dave Kelly said victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church were going though a difficult time following the death of Pope Francis as the church continued to put up legal roadblocks to them seeking compensation. What do you think? Email your comments to: sigladman@rationalist.com.au |
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| RATIONALE Religion as a way of seeing the
world Paul Monk: In March this year, John Cottingham, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading and an Honorary Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford University, wrote a column for an online magazine, IAI, under the title ‘Wittgenstein vs Dawkins: Is God a scientific hypothesis’. In the article, he suggests that Richard Dawkins mistook religion for a second-rate and out-of-date kind of
science. Read the full article |
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| RATIONALE Just like magic: Tapping into the secrets of the
human mind Radoslaw Wincza: Magicians have long been masters of mind games, turning our brain’s quirks and blind spots into moments of pure astonishment. But magic isn’t just for show – it’s become a powerful tool in the cognitive science of unlocking the mind’s hidden limitations. The science of magic has grown into a serious field of study, showing us how unreliable our intuitions and self-perceptions can be.
Read the full article |
| ABC RADIO Does the Lord's Prayer still belong in our parliament? Reporter Sandy Powell interviewed Rationalist Society of Australia Executive Director
Si Gladman and Independent member of parliament Mike Gaffney about the practice of the the Tasmanian parliament and local councils beginning daily proceedings with Christian prayers. Listen to the full episode |
| ABC When coercion is taken out of religion, what do we have left? Sarah Bacaller: The Victorian inquiry is an important step, but the committee
has an extraordinarily complex task ahead of them in untangling where the threads of accepted theological belief and practice end, and where “high demand” religion and coercion begin. Nevertheless, the recognition itself by wider society that religious contexts can inflict damage feels deeply significant and validating. Read the full article |
| THE AGE How Australia’s Catholic establishment was ‘shafted’ by the pope and left out of the conclave Jordan Baker: Australian Catholic schools
and universities are the pride of the global church. No other country gives them such generous public funding. Rome would like to have this replicated elsewhere, and therefore oversees it carefully, interceding where necessary. Read the full article |
| ABC Muslim voters say election delivered strong message despite Labor landslide Erwin Renaldi: Rita Jabri Markwell, from the Australian Muslim
Advocacy Network, said even though the impact of the Muslim vote was not "as strong as it could have been", Labor candidates were still left fighting to retain their seats. "It really is a warning to those members of parliament that if they continue to ignore those voters they may be paying an even greater price at the next election," the lawyer said. Read the full article |
| ABC If Muslims want our votes to matter, we must move from protest to policy, from emotion to organisation Ali Kadri: Like so many in our
community, I have watched the events in Gaza with a heavy heart. The grief is overwhelming. The images of destroyed homes, injured children and grieving families have left many of us feeling angry, helpless and desperate to do something. In that emotional space, the campaign called Muslim Votes Matter began to take shape. Read the full article |
| FREETHINKER Is there a religious revival among young Brits? Richy Thompson and Jeremy Rodell: Alongside the growth in recent years of (and
perhaps not unrelated to) the New Theism, there have been many claims of a Christian revival in the West, particularly among the young. These claims are unconvincing, probably just the fantasy of a dying faith, but they remain quite widespread. Read the full
article |
| THE CONVERSATION Basic research advances science, and can also have broader impacts on modern society Bruce J. MacFadden: Basic research, often
done because of a curious scientist’s interest, may not initially have a direct application, like developing the smartphone or curing a disease. But these discoveries build important knowledge in the natural sciences, engineering, mathematics and related disciplines. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION Religious charter schools threaten to shift more money away from traditional public schoolsDerek W. Black: The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on
April 30, 2025, in what could be the most consequential case for public education since the court started requiring schools to desegregate in the years following Brown v. Board of Education. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond – and its companion case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond – asks whether religious groups have a right not just to start public charter schools with public tax dollars but to operate them as faith-based
schools. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION What will the Antichrist look like? According to Western thought, an authoritarian king – or the pope Philip C. Almond: This
image of “Pope Donald I” is of historical significance, for reasons of which, no doubt, the White House and Trump were blissfully unaware. It is the first ever image to combine the two most important understandings of the figure of the Antichrist in Western thought: on the one hand, that of the pope, and on the other, that of the authoritarian, despotic world emperor. Read the full article |
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