How sad it is that a good, decent, priest, who
can fill his church to capacity with worshippers
is being 'expelled' and his church closed down
at a time when other Catholic churches are empty,
and there is a great shortage of priests in Australia.

This is an example of what was seen happening in the
Soviet Union where the Government shut down churches
because they preached disagreement with their policy
and they converted the churches to museums, store-rooms,
and factories.

Is this what the Head of the Catholic Church in Australia
really condones?

At this rate many more Churches will inevitably be closed,
people will continue to leave in droves. Because a religion
which expects people to march in identical step and to chant
a univocal doctrine ceases to draw people in.

There was another priest, Father James Kavanaugh, who wrote
back in 1967:

"We need an evaluation of what is Christian, and what is simply
tired and imperious tradition. The present structure of the
Church is not an adequate representation of the Christ of
Gospel and history..."

We need priests like Father Kennedy who asks for " honest
dialogue, an open hierarchy, and a Church which does not have
all the answers or expects all its members to walk in the
wooden cadences of frozen categories."

1967 - 2009 - Nothing has changed.
Sad indeed - and a great loss for all!

Speaking as a slightly-lapsed Catholic, I wonder at the mood here.
If you're a Catholic, then you accept as a Tenet of Faith the Primacy and Infallibility of the Papacy in matters of the Faith, how can there be any question of error here?
The priests concerned believe they know better than the Pope?
Do you?
If you're a Christian, that's one thing, and you can find you're way where-ever you wish, and I bless you for you're Faith, but if you claim to be Catholic, then the matter is closed, the authority of Rome has spoken, and that is the end of it.

Otokonoko, I agree with your point that the CC has an enormous grip on the people in the countries which you quote. It is also coincidental that these are amongst some of the poorer countries of the world, certainly in Christendom. One wonders "Why is it so". The Vatican does nothing to use its undoubted riches to help the poor or the needy, it just goes about the business of keeping the hierarchy in the style to which they have become accustomed.

And we thought the Medici were a pack of bastards.

Speaking of the Medici there are those who miss them and days past

Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

-- Edwin Arlington Robinson

As far as I can understand it, Father Kennedy was not reprimanded for his views or for doing charitable work among the needy, oppressed, marginalised etc., but for conducting the celebration of the Eucharist (the mass) - which is a ceremony with its rules like any other ceremony - in a form that does not comply with the rules that the Church has the right to set in order to protect its identity (and unity, at least in the formal, liturgical, sense). An identity that other Christians might or might not acknowledge or even approve of (it should be irrelevant for those who are not Christians).

As for “Fr Kennedy’s success in attracting a congregation” the Archbishop would certainly not object to Father Kennedy “attracting a congregation” by e.g. serving soup to the homeless and needy, but he would certainly object if the priest was doing it during the mass.

>> The liturgy ... including women preaching. They also ... give out communion to all and sundry. <<

Part of these rules - for better or worse - is that neither laymen nor laywomen are supposed to preach during the mass. Of course, they are encouraged to give lectures at various Church organised occasions, and there are many Catholic women, including professional theologians, who do that, often on controversial topics.

Another “rule” is the Catholic understanding of (holy) communion, which other Christians might or might not share (again something that should not be of interest to non-Christians). Most universities would object if asked to “give out degrees to all and sundry” irrespective of the rules it set, rules that outsiders might or might not like.

Nevertheless, the crisis, as to membership numbers, is real. However, it is not so much a crisis of the Catholic Church as that of organised, i.e. traditional, Christianity - Catholic or Protestant - in the West. Not only numbers of secular humanists (atheists) but also those of Evangelicals, often of the most fundamentalist orientation and emotional ways of expressing their faith, thrive on this.

One issue that I have never heard the media mention about Fr Kennedy, and St Mary's activities, is that they are intensely anti-war. St Mary's has been openly critical of Australia's role in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the Australian government's failure to condemn Israel's persecution of, and successive military assaults on, the Palestinian people.

In such a pro-war society as Australia, the championing of peace and the criticism of war are quite possibly greater 'sins' to the Australian arm of the Catholic Church and the conservative Australian establishment than accepting gays into the flock, promoting the ordination of women or installing statues of Bhudda in the garden.

On this basis, I wonder if Dr Bathesby's punitive actions are a reflection of the Australian Church hierarchy as much as those of the Vatican.