A long time ago when I was much younger and not well behaved (at all) and still drinking (a lot), my college friends and I got a touch out of control and we got kicked out of a bar.
The bouncers said it was because we were rowdy, drunk, swearing, and fighting but we’d argued that we’d been rowdy, drunk and swearing for hours and nobody seemed to mind. The fighting was the only change and we promised to stop. The massive bouncers grabbed us by our necks and shirts and tossed us out. We slurred to the behemoths that we were coming back with everyone we knew and they’d be sorry.
Well, Fr. Peter Kennedy seems to be leaving St. Mary’s Church in Australia in much the same way.
But we at least had the smarts to just go to sleep it off before we did any lasting damage. Fr. Kennedy is essentially swearing his revenge on the Catholic church by starting his own church just down the street.
You might remember Fr. Kennedy as the priest who compared himself to Jesus and had a UFO cult rally to his aid.
Father Kennedy in his stay at St. Mary’s Church has focused almost exclusively on social justice while eschewing spirituality altogether. Fr. Kennedy has allowed women to preach at St Mary’s Church and he often blesses homosexual couples. He allowed a Buddhist statue in the church and even questioned the virgin birth of Jesus.
Archbishop John Bathersby terminated Fr Kennedy’s appointment there and Fr. Kennedy tried to rally people to his cause during Sunday Mass because that’s what Sunday mass is for. And this has been going on for months. There were even bomb scares phoned in to the bishop over Fr. Kennedy’s removal.
Well, according to Australia Incognita, Fr. Kennedy’s last Mass was Sunday.
Today was Fr Kennedy’s last mass at South Brisbane, and the media coverage continues, to the end, to be blatantly biased in favour of him (take a look at this Courier Mail story to see what I mean), even as he says ever more outrageous things. Like, Is the Pope a Catholic? on ABC tv news. Or this, on the ABC website:
“Our story might give hope to all those Catholics you know who’ve left the church for all sorts of good reasons,” he said. “Those who’ve been excluded on grounds of gender or sexual orientation, or just people who have been oppressed by the doctrines and dogmas and regulations and rules of the Catholic Church.”
Well, now it seems that Kennedy has started up his own church of sorts. After his last Mass, many of the people followed Fr Kennedy 200 metres down the road after the mass to the Trades and Labour Council building where his new congregation, St Mary’s in Exile, will be based.
According to the Courier Mail:
Fr Kennedy said the majority of the St Mary’s church community would join his congregation.
“Father Ken Howell (the newly appointed St Mary’s administrator) will have to rent a crowd,” Fr Kennedy said. “They are in denial that this community will walk down the road and join St Mary’s in Exile.
“They came before because we were different. We ran liturgies for the people.”
Yes. You don’t want any of that weird God stuff working its way into the liturgy. Booooringggg!
We should pray for Fr. Kennedy and hope that he comes to his senses. And stop hanging out with Raelians.
(If by chance any of those bouncers that booted me out of the bar are reading this, I’m sorry and I’m not still gathering friends to come back. Just in case you were worried.)
April 22, 2009 at 6:04 pm
What a drama queen.
I’d say he was acting like a two-year-old, but my son turned two today and I wouldn’t want to offend him.
April 22, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Drama queen indeed! The Church of the 16-Year-Old Princess!
I wonder why Fr. Princess was allowed a farewell Mass. He will be a ten minutes’ joke to the press, and then will become more and more dysfunctional, a poor old man shuffling down the sidewalk cursing telephone poles.
April 22, 2009 at 11:02 pm
In your list of his misdeeds, you forgot to mention that he performed invalid baptisms for some 30 years.
April 23, 2009 at 2:38 am
I truly believe the best thing that could happen would be to excommunicate Fr. Kennedy and those who choose to follow him to the new church.
They have effectively left the Church anyway, why not try something that may possibly help them see their errors, amend their ways, and re-enter into the Church?
April 23, 2009 at 3:40 am
Fr. Kennedy should be laicized immediately. His liturgies should be avoided and will be avoided by every obedient Catholic. Let’s continue to pray for him and the people duped by him. It likely won’t be long until Kennedy will be more forceful in his demands that people to conform absolutely to his religion. Perhaps people will smarten up and see Kennedy’s acts for what they are – the acts of someone accruing power to himself and who is behaving like a petulant school boy because big bad Mother Church is cramping his style. Like every protestant, he is defined by his protest, and like every protestant sect at its foundation his group will continue to justify its existence by defining itself in opposition to big bad Rome. Mr. Kennedy, “Let God’s people go!”
April 23, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Brendan,
I believe he excommunicated himself already. It may not be a formal process, but since he is doing his “own thing” he is no longer Roman Catholic, just another Protestant denomination.
April 24, 2009 at 10:13 am
What saddens me more than his own views is that he is taking people with him. I pray that his and their eyes are opened and that they come home.
April 24, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Good ridance. And raise the drawbridge once his flock leaves with him. I only hope he is publicly excommunicated for preaching his heresy so there is no doubt what the Catholic church stands for.