Australian Catholic Ethnographics
Recently, I received an invitation to do something a little out of my comfort zone, and speak with Jonathan Cole, a political theologian with a distinguished background in intelligence. Cole is also assistant director for Charles Sturt University’s Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society. Based in the Australian capital Canberra, the Centre describes itself as “a founding member of the Global Network for Public Theology” and “committed to becoming the lead centre in the Asia-Pacific region for research at the interface of theology and public issues”.
Jonathan is also host of the podcast The Political Animals, which uses long form interview formats to do deep dives into a range of topics that intersect between religion and politics. There are fabulous episodes in there, and some of my favourites have covered the history of Cultural Marxism, Gender Critical Feminism, China’s strategic priorities and right wing extremism.
In the last month, I was invited to speak with Jonathan about Catholics in Australia. It was a broad remit that I was given, so the best way to describe what I tried to do on the podcast is to have an initial stab (at least for me) at an Australian Catholic ethnography. These included some statistical figures on the state of Catholics in Australia, the institutional footprint of Catholics, the perceptions of Catholics in Australia, and also the changing faces of Catholics. The impression I got from Jonathan is that a lot of what I presented seem to cut across the seemingly popular perception of Catholics. What I hope also came through was the increasingly migrant face of the Church in Australia.
A final section moved closer to Jonathan’s wheelhouse of the intersection between Catholicism and politics. This was the section where I think I could have done better, and I kept circling back to the proclivity towards having one’s faith defined by one’s political investments.
Whether the assessments I presented in the podcast are fair or not, I will leave it here for the reader and listener to decide, but I am grateful to Jonathan for the opportunity to speak with him, and finally try out the local Korean Fried Chicken after.
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