If you don’t like the rules, start your own church
Miranda Devine
February 26, 2009
Illustration: Edd Aragon
The Socialist Alliance posters outside St Mary’s Catholic Church in Brisbane said it all. “Dump Intolerance, not Father Kennedy.” “Who would Jesus sack?” The father in question is Peter Kennedy, the 70-year-old Catholic priest who is being forced out of the church he has turned into a green-leftist New Age drop-in centre.
He is refusing to leave the church he has presided over for 28 years, despite repeated entreaties by Archbishop John Bathersby, and has refused to change any part of the unorthodox and decidedly non-Catholic religious practice he has instituted.
Footage of Mass - or whatever it is - at St Mary’s on ABC-TV this week showed a pony-tailed man - not a priest - in a bright shirt waving around a giant Communion host in a haphazard way, while people sat on the floor at his feet. It looked more like a yoga session, with meditation and lay people taking to the pulpit to give “sermons” which have nothing to do with the Bible.
A weekend newspaper report recounted the “sermon” at one St Mary’s service which consisted of a reading from a letter from a supporter of Kennedy’s: “I don’t come to St Mary’s because it is a Catholic place of worship. I come because it has everything I seek in my own life - love, truth, authenticity, integrity, justice, unity, compassion, openness and friendship.” Quite a smorgasbord. The only problem is that St Mary’s is a Catholic place of worship - and has been since 1864.
Since Bathersby tried to pull him into line last August, Kennedy and his supporters have waged a canny public relations war against the church, with protest banners, press conferences, blogs and the archbishop’s pleading letters posted on the web.
“I take my authority from the people,” Kennedy told reporters. Not God? No wonder the Socialist Alliance loves him. Socialism regards religion as a “spiritual oppressor”, in the words of Lenin, who also said “Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism”.
It doesn’t matter which dupes the left uses to destroy organised religion, or how they commandeer the social justice work of well-meaning church people, the aim is never to foster religious practice or nourish a love of God.
So vehement are Kennedy’s supporters that opposition within the parish has been muted and mainly anonymous, with critics vilified as “extremists” doing the bidding of Rome, and not welcome at St Mary’s. So much for tolerance and inclusiveness.
The extremism appears to be on the other side, with threats to bomb Bathersby’s house and other provocations of which the archbishop complained in another letter to Kennedy.
“At times I am treated with scant respect [and there has been] abusive language of South Brisbane people directed over the past few months from the front gates of my house.”
Churchgoers horrified by Kennedy’s antics finally mustered the courage to officially complain to Bathersby and the Vatican last year, armed with footage of an unorthodox baptism. The baptism last September, which was posted on YouTube, shows Kennedy in plain clothes, saying. “We baptise you in the name of the creator, sustainer and liberator of life”, a form of words Kennedy had reportedly been told was not acceptable in the church.
Why Kennedy couldn’t go along with the religion which ordained him and use the official words: “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is anyone’s guess.
Egotism may play a part. After all, Kennedy claims “this community will die when I leave”. The fact he has been at St Mary’s for 28 years should ring alarm bells. Like a political leader, a church leader can be tempted by hubris if in power for too long.
Bathersby. who denies being influenced by the Vatican, has made several attempts to bring St Mary’s into line with church rules and teaching. Kennedy wasn’t being told to toss out gays or divorcees or take down the Aboriginal flag or stop feeding the homeless, just to behave like a Catholic priest and preach the beliefs of the Catholic Church, which include that Jesus is the son of God.
“While it is admirable to read that St Mary’s focuses on social justice its looseness of theology leaves much to be desired,” wrote Bathersby in one letter. But Kennedy refused to “budge an inch”. Instead of gently leading his flock back to the church, he likened himself to Jesus and made himself a martyr.
While you can feel pity for Bathersby, the mess is his own making. Having tolerated Kennedy’s antics for years, and having presided over the transformation of Brisbane into the most progressive and least disciplined archdiocese in the country, he can hardly be surprised by the result.
There are plenty of religions which have protested more effectively about Catholic authority than Kennedy - he should try them. Or he could establish his own religion. He has said if he is forced out he will take his flock with him: “The reality is that, if we are excluded from this church, the Trades and Labor Council have already offered us their place just down the road.”
Good luck to him. No one is forced to be a Catholic, and the church - as it has been for 2000 years - is thriving the world over, wherever it has remained true to its teachings. The thousands of young people who spontaneously went to Rome for the funeral of the very orthodox Pope John Paul II were not activists trying to dismantle the church. They are the future, not Kennedy’s outdated mumbo jumbo socialism.
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