crucifiction

by D_m_i_t_r_y

On the 6th of February 2009, Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby penned a letter to Peter Kennedy.

Dear Peter Thank you for your letter of 12 January with its invitation to further discuss the situation of St Mary’s South Brisbane. I see no reason to do so. I have repeatedly asked for changes but you and the community have not budged an inch.

Time and time again I have spelt out a request for changes at St Mary’s Parish if it is to remain in communion with the Archdiocese of Brisbane and the Roman Catholic Church. However time and time again St Mary’s has chosen to go its own way. therefore reluctantly I make the following decisions.

I will terminate your appointment as Administrator of St Mary’s Parish effective Saturday, 21 February 2009 unless you were to resign beforehand.


Instead of mediation or coming to a compromise (ie. not ‘budging an inch’), the Roman Catholic church sacked a fifty year serving (twenty eight years at St Mary’s) priest.

So what did Father Kennedy do to warrant such retribution?

Well aside from letting women preach, blessing homosexual unions, having a Buddhist statue in the church, permitting sitting instead of standing when gospel is read and slightly politically correctly altering certain prayers well, not a lot.

Whilst I have absolutely no qualms with any of the above there does seem to be one further sticking point over remarks made by Kennedy on the existence of Jesus and the belief of physical resurrection, both of which are cornerstones of the Catholic faith.

I would say it doesn’t really matter to me whether Jesus existed or not … Do I believe in Jesus? There’s not much corroborating evidence of the existence of a Jesus, of course.

People get very anxious about that but there really isn’t.

I don’t believe in a physical resurrection. (I believe in a) whole rhythm of nature and resurrection. Like the natural world itself speaks back to us all the time about birth, death and resurrection.


Now although the end of that quote sounds like something you might hear at a new age yoga convention, all he’s really saying is that he doesn’t believe in literal physical resurrection.

Is it such a big deal to suggest a literal physical resurrection is ridiculous and instead subscribe to a spiritual resurrection of the mind and spirit in all of us (which is what I believe he is getting at)?

Steve from Opinion Dominion gives one possible explanation;

Every homily contains statements which are exaggerations, over-simplifications, or simply misleading; but if it appeared in one of Peter or Terry’s favourite recent authors, they’ll repeat it anyway.


If exaggerations, over-simplifications and simply misleading statements are what other Catholics have against Kennedy well forgive me but last I checked isn’t the bible full of such statements?

I mean really, simplifying human evolution and explaining pain with two people and a snake and don’t get me started on the 6000 year old universe and how it took seven days to create.

Yeah, because you know carbon dating is totally believable when testing various artifacts related to Christianity but all of sudden it’s devil magic when used to date Aboriginal remains that are over 40,000 years old.

Religion, like anything else in this world should be evolutionary (no pun intended), and instead of stifling slightly different interpretations of the same ideas and ideologies the church should be embracing them. After all, aren’t the gospels themselves four slightly different interpretations of the same series of events?

I’m not about to pretend that if more priests were like Kennedy all of a sudden I’d be going to church and proclaiming Christ as my saviour, hell I’m not even Catholic – but I can appreciate the value and spiritual enrichment Kennedy has brought into many people’s lives. Something the Roman Catholic church cannot.

The average congregation size in Australia back in 2001 was 60-70, with a 13% reduction by 2004 I can only wonder how small congregations are now.

With a congregation of 1000+, a ton of community involvement and work with the homeless, the parish of St. Mary’s seems to have been built up over the years into a beacon of values the church is supposed to be all about.

Ultimately if nobody is interested then the church fails, yet remarkably in an age of declining congregations here is a church community that was thriving.

Despite being stripped of his position at St. Marys, Kennedy still preaches at the Trades Hall nearby to a weekly congregation of about 300 which is still well above the national average. Naturally this made the controlling overlords over at church HQ in Rome furious and today they have imposed a worldwide ban on Kennedy from performing priestly duties.

At the end of the day for a man to devote fifty years of his life to the priesthood and spend twenty eight years building a flourishing community in the name of god only to have it stripped away must have been a hard wafer to swallow. Clearly the man believed in the church’s teachings and found a strong connection to a community in an often ‘religiously irrelevant’ modern time.

The parish of St. Mary’s worked so well because the needs of it’s parishioners, the people the Church is supposed to serve, not dictate over, were met in the synergy of Catholic religious teachings and one man’s vision.

Last I checked the church is supposed to work for the benefit of the people, not declare them spiritually invalid. Sadly, in a sea of pedophiles and pope scandal, one of the few positives to shine through the fabric of Catholic religion over the last few decades seems to be all but extinguished.

I guess there’s only room for so much tolerance in Rome.


Share this article:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • Facebook
No related posts.