St Mary’s in exile
TOBY LONGHURST
Former St Mary’s Catholic Church priest, Father Peter Kennedy has vowed to continue leading Catholic services in a new venue, labelling St Mary’s a church in exile.
Fr Kennedy will leave his beloved South Brisbane church by April 19 as part of an agreement with the Archdiocese -” but he intends to make a visible exit.
Addressing a packed service last Sunday, Fr Kennedy told parishioners he would take up an offer from the nearby Trades and Labour Council to use their building to continue conducting Catholic services.
The move is thought to essentially split the parish in two.
Fr Kennedy has encouraged parishioners to mark the first Mass held at the new venue by meeting at St Mary’s Church and to make a statement by marching en masse 200 metres down the road to the TLC building.
The decision to leave the church, which Fr Kennedy has presided over for 28 years, was made to avoid what the St Mary’s community described as imminent and abrupt legal action by the Archdiocese.
Despite raising the ire of conservative Catholics, the controversial priest believes that the St Mary’s community remains part of the Catholic Church and is proud of the inclusive community which St Mary’s provides.
We’re not about changing the Roman Catholic Church, Fr Kennedy said.
We are about standing with integrity, particularly in those areas where the Church excludes people, like women, like gay and lesbian people, like people who are divorced and remarried outside the Church
Fr Kennedy will lead the St Mary’s faithful at the 112-year-old church for the final time on Easter Sunday with the irony of the Easter story not lost on the 71-year-old priest.
We are living out the Easter story. We have come up against the hierarchy just as Jesus did, and what they did to Jesus, well, they’ve done it to this community as well.
As we know, the Easter story ends with Jesus rising from the dead. The question now is can St Mary’s do the same?
Obviously the Rev. Bishop Pell is not open to the direction the Holy Spirit..the One who gives life to the church..Have felt totally dismayed at this behaviour from this part of Christ’s Church to other members of His body. And what a witness to those who are not followers of our lord.
I support Peter Kennedy completely. There have been other great and altruistic men thrown out of the catholic church, so he is in good company.
All christian churches have a narrow view of the truth, and follow it dogmatically. Not many of them actually follow Christ’s philosophy and it looks like they are prepared to sack anyone who tries. Good luck Father Kennedy, keep up your great work
I was christened and brought up in the Catholic Church as a child but as soon as I could exercise my God-given freewill I was out of there, as I recognised the hypocrisy between the original message and the Catholic interpretation of it. I prefer to leave the RC church to the ignorant, power-hungry old men who (if given the choice) would deny condoms to Africa and thus deprive people of an effective tool to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, who sit in “ivory towers” on millions of dollars worth of assets and dictate policies that deny the humanity of the race they belong to. Jesus was “fully human” and the closest “role model” to that the local catholic church has produced lately has been Peter Kennedy. I may not belong to your church Peter but I fully support your congregation in their efforts to follow the historic Jesus and a truer path – Peace, Joy & Love to you all.
Bigot Pell wins again!