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The Forum > Article Comments > Winners and losers from St Mary’s > Comments

Winners and losers from St Mary’s : Comments

By Alan Austin, published 29/4/2009

The fiasco at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Brisbane, is a disaster for Catholics worldwide. Couldn’t Peter and John have sorted it out over a beer?

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Apology accepted, DreamOn.

>>Still "schiz" as the root word, I forget, perhaps something like "to be set aside or to be aside from the group, self absorbed, self consumed with inner considerations?<<

In fact the root schiz- comes quite straightforwardly from the Greek schizein, to split.

http://www.myetymology.com/greek/schizein.html
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:21:38 PM
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Mr Kennedy should be subject to an IQ test. He's a disgrace and possibly borderline retarded if not just deviant. If he is not intentionally leading people away from the Catholic church, than he does so from sheer stupidity. I wonder if their would be this much uproar and media attention had it been a Rabbi or Islamic Cleric?

We need the Catholic Church to be strong and rigid as society gets so full of itself that it implodes. We need it to not change with the times and maintain all that Christ God our Savior has given us- which is infinite in value and given to every human being- even the unborn!
Posted by bach, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 2:14:17 PM
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Bach,

I doubt Father Kennedy is retarded. Few atheists can convince a large group of people that they have a God given right to be running the Catholic Church of their choosing.

Alan,

On the topic of atheism. The ABC had a story on Sunday about Fr Kennedy and Fr Fitzpatrick. It had him saying that there is no evidence whatsoever that God exists. Do you still think he is not an atheist?

It was a fascinating story which addressed some of the rumours floating around in the Catholic Church about Father Kennedy. There have been rumours circulating that Father Fitzpatrick has a child which he was carefully concealing. On the program his son was interviewed. Naturally double standards applied and the heterosexual nature of Fitzpatrick's liaison meant that he wasn't demonised as a result for his broken vows. The program also showed Fr Kennedy not only in the small Toowong(?) Brisbane flat that the media have previously associated with him but also at his Gold Coast property. Naturally the issue of how he got it or why he didn't fulfil the saintly media construct of him by selling it and assisting the poor with the proceeds was not raised. The program indicated that in spite of everything the Church still pays him a salary and he hasn't been excommunicated. It also had Fr Kennedy confessing to assaulting Mr Stokes. The early denials have evaporated and his version of events is the same as Mr Stokes' early allegations. Obviously the recording the ABC have aired previously was quite incriminating and self explanatory and explains why he now fesses up and why he doesn't persist with his early story about why he wanted Mr Stokes to go.

In spite of all this the program was very much set up to make Fr Kennedy look good. The revelations were probably more of an attempt to defang his detractors by getting the bad stuff in first in a favourable context than to portray him in a poor light.
Posted by mjpb, Friday, 29 May 2009 11:22:58 AM
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Alan,

I have just had time to read your original article. I am not confident that the French media got their facts correct and I have questions and comments:

“No one can recall a case like it.”
It is very unusual for a liberal Catholic priest to turn on a liberal Catholic Archbishop like that as if attempting to get excommunicated or something. Further, liberal Bishops tend to only remove orthodox priests like the Fr Speekman (http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2007/feb2007p7_2444.html) incident but it makes sense as Kennedy seemed determined to force Batthersby to take action.

“The sacked priest at the centre of the conflict, Father Peter Kennedy…”
Kennedy may have admitted to assaulting a parishioner, admitted to being an atheist, given the finger to his boss, and refused to do his job but he has not been sacked. He has just been moved from St Mary’s. He is still on the Catholic Church payroll. After several months (if not years) of begging for Kennedy to do his job the Archbishop took a very gentle approach.

“Finally the complainants went direct to Rome. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled in February that only the traditional names could be used. Then Bathersby was obliged to do what he never wanted to do and dismiss the errant priest.”

Yes but the ruling was February, 2008!

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801159.htm

Even late last year and early this year Batthersby was still giving Kennedy the opportunity to do valid Baptisms. Kennedy refused and made a lot of public criticisms of the Church.

“John Bathersby … absence from mediation meetings was worse.”
Is that what they tell you in France? Kennedy refused to attend mediation. (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25195404-3102,00.html)

“… win approval from a generally anti-religious watching world.”
If a Catholic priest questions any normal understanding of the Christian faith (eg. life after death, heaven, God, divinity of Christ) and bags the Catholic Church of course an anti-religious watching world will give approval.
Posted by mjpb, Tuesday, 2 June 2009 9:34:00 AM
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" ... If a Catholic priest questions any normal understanding of the Christian faith ... "

Maybe its U who are not normal?

To say that there is no evidence of "God" does not make you an atheist. It just means that you are very likely rational, or perhaps you can enlighten us to the existence of such evidence mjbp?

No, I seem to recall you alleging as fact that the concept of there being many paths to God was a "new age" nonsense. The truth of course is that unless you are prophessing to 1st hand experience of the mystical then you cannot know this to be true, which to my way of thinking makes you no different from any other frothing at the mouth fanatic, who seeks to assert belief as fact.
Posted by DreamOn, Saturday, 6 June 2009 12:37:50 PM
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"To say that there is no evidence of "God" does not make you an atheist. It just means that you are very likely rational..."

Therefore to believe that there is plenty of evidence that God does exist would mean that you're irrational. So Einstein for instance would be irrational by your definition.

Evolution is still indeed a theory and further more if evolution was a primary means to life and diversity it certainly does not prove that God does not exist. Yet to believe that there is not something great that put purpose and the fundamental pursuit of life into all organisms is merely simplistic arrogant denial. Just because we start to discover the mechanics of life does not mean that there is not a creator, on the contrary it proves there most certainly is a creator.

Think about all the billions and trillions of 'mere coincidences' that must have occurred to create and sustain life! Mathematicians (atheist ones at that) have worked it out to be almost in comprehensible.

Let's say for instance that God does not exist. What has society gained by making that assumption? To get rid of God's Law, the Ten Commandments, is to instill subjectivity in moral law- altered and manipulated by the current times it leaves us in total moral decay under the false pretense that it is 'good' simply because the majority rules. Just like abortion. We don't exactly know when life is life so 'rationally' how can we assume to know when life is not life. And what is at stake is a 'life'. Which it seems today is not worth that much. This is one example of the fruits of secularism.

There is most certainly a God and that God is a loving God. Man gets nothing from pretending that God does not exist, except freedom from guilt to serve his own purpose at the expense of others.
Posted by bach, Saturday, 6 June 2009 2:26:48 PM
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