The most interesting comments on this discussion are those of the people who love rules. The Roman Catholic church worships its rules. It has much in common with Islam and the Jewish faith in that regard. Roman Catholicism, Islam and Orthodox Jewry are obsessed with government from the top down, instead of from the bottom up, as Jesus Christ advocated, so members of all three religious streams mentioned above are rule followers rather than rule makers. They would refer to the very successful ministries of the likes of Father Kennedy and Hillsong as the Rule Breakers.

For the above reasons Judges and Magistrates if members of either Jewry, Roman Catholicism, or Islam, atheists, and agnostics are prepared to sell their souls for thirty pieces of silver, and break the great commandment delivered in the Sermon on the Mount, Judge not that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1). Unfortunately in Australia the Roman Catholics who accepted the Constitution and voted for it, when they got into Parliament have introduced Roman Catholic Law into Australia and abolished the system the English have so successfully used to govern themselves for about 750 years. Starting in 1215, the English with the Magna Carta took the teachings of Jesus Christ to heart, and avoided the very worst excesses of Roman Catholic corruption, that has caused the failure of every Catholic republic.

In direct contradiction of the Statutory Command in S 116 Constitution, the five anti Christian organizations cited above, have imposed their will on the people of Australia, and the States become Churches, based on the Roman Catholic system. They set the punishment, maintain the prisons, employ the Police, and they make the rules. Obey the rules, get good, disobey the rules, get punished, is the Lex talionis of the Jews, Roman Catholics and Islamics. We used to have the lex misericordiae, the law of mercy and forgiveness, and The Queen was its symbol. The Judas Priests who have sold their souls for thirty pieces of silver, have accepted this illegitimate and un-Constitutional legislation as Gospel. The Judges and Magistrates have a judgment day coming

Ay yes *Alan* ThankU for providing that link. It seems plain that the priest in question is much Luved by his flock and hopefully continues to nurture their Souls according to both their general and specific needs.

I would suggest that the catholic church, who are just another organisation that should have been disbanded by the world a long time ago for its crimes against humanity, is not deserving of *Kennedy's* talents and hopefully he will find his feet with other more Christed folk.

The "congregation" needs i.m.o. to be brought back to a 1 on 1 relationship with their God concept, and away from this grotesque compulsion to lay down their "I" to an individual and hierarchy clearly suffering from delusions of grandeur.

I do not consider myself a catholic hater per se, but I draw the line on persons of any persuasion who assume to have the right to dictate the behaviour of others in matters of Luv. And in that regard, the catholic church is a curse.

Alan A,

I suspect that the Archbishop already embraces such a pastoral style. I believe his Archdiocese has great variation and he is normally loathe to intervene. He left St Mary's alone for many years in spite of an awareness of the unorthodox practices. However discovering that the pastor at the Church was an atheist who publically rejected the notion of a Catholic Church founded by Jesus and was highly critical of it most probably made him feel obliged to intervene. Fr Kennedy's media stance probably sealed the fate. Is it possible that as an old rebel close to retirement he wanted to go out with a bang? Could it be that simple?

How about we wait and see if the Archbishop now cracks down on gay friendly parishes or places where women give homilies or even non standard liturgies (the latter issue supported by Archbishop's comments but I suspect they were more political than anything). That is what the media claimed it was about. I won't hold my breath.

"Yet 'Good News to the poor' is supposed to be part of the ministry of Jesus. Some claim it is the ministry of Jesus."

If you were an Archbishop reading Fr Kennedy's media comments wouldn't you have serious doubts as to whether giving the Good News to anyone was involved. Caring for the poor is commendable and was involved in the ministry of Jesus but without communion with the Church why are they more entitled to exclusively use Church premises any more than good atheist social workers?

"And nothing seems outside the spirit of Roman Catholic teaching." Why the weasel phrase "spirit of Roman Catholic teaching"? (I hope you are used to this type of expression and realise no offence is intended.) It reads like Denuzio's reference to the vibe of the Constitution in the movie The Castle when he couldn't produce an argument.

Thanks for these further inputs. Will let yours slide, Peter, as it’s off topic. DreamOn, are you generalising excessively?

Mjpb, I accept some of your observations but not yet convinced Kennedy is an atheist. Are you sure? Even Jesus nuanced his answers on his divinity when asked direct questions. On the matter of Church authority, Terra and I are pursuing this currently. You are welcome to participate. No, not at all offended by your choice of words, Mjpb, but just note that Dennis Denuto won in the end.

Back to the matter of words for the Trinity, Terra, changing them shouldn’t really be too much of a problem. Why not apply the power used not so long ago to make Holy Spirit an optional alternative to Holy Ghost? After all, the Bible and the church have many terms for Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When early church father Hilary of Poitiers discusses Jesus’ words “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” he uses ten different expressions for the Son. Different words can legitimately be used for the same truth.

Besides, Jesus never actually said Father. He used two Aramaic words, Allaha and Abbah. The closest in English is Allah, which most Christians prefer not to use. Fine. So use Father. Or Creator. Pastorally, what is a priest to do with an abuse victim who screams or fits at the word Father? Or Mother? Or any word that triggers a psychotic episode? Surely the Catholic church is big enough to allow parishes to use Creator in such exceptional cases. Perhaps the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were not considering the right question.

Re congregationalism, Terra, will come back to this as it’s important. But you are right about the RC not being a denomination. So I retract again. How about a family of several score mini-denominations more or less connected, though displaying an extraordinarily exciting diversity?

I think the outcome is a positive one - Kennedy gets to keep running his ministry, and the Archdiocese of Brisbane gets to run things its own way. Perhaps a better outcome could have been achieved if they had sat down and discussed their differences out of the public eye.

No, I'm not advocating some sort of "cover-up" - I'm suggesting that the publicity has not been good for anyone. Quite a few years back, a Uniting Church community in Logan broke away from the greater Church because they disagreed with the updated stance on homosexuality. The break was quite low-key, and both have carried on quite nicely in their own directions. At the end of the day, Kennedy's situation was quite similar. He had led his congregation in a direction very different from that of the Archdiocese and, notionally at least, from that of the Catholic Church. In essence, what he was doing was no longer Catholic.

I'll steer clear of the fast food comparison here, but as a corporate entity the Catholic Church found itself in a difficult situation. How can the administrators of the Archdiocese of Brisbane develop a vision and a clearly-defined belief structure if they allow variation within their ranks? As an organisation dealing primarily in belief, it's hard to sell your product when you can't say what it is. Bathersby and his associates have stuck to the Vatican line of thought, while Kennedy sees things differently. Whether or not he fits into the Catholic Church is debatable; he certainly doesn't fit into the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Consequently, he could not remain a part of that body.

He could possibly have taken an unprecedented step and sought patronage from a more progressive diocese - they do exist elsewhere. Geographically, he would have been in Brisbane; spiritually, he would be elsewhere. This would require a bit of initiative on his part and a shift in thinking on the part of the Church, but as it is (to my knowledge) untested, who can say whether or not it would have worked?

Alan A says my last post was off topic. I strongly disagree. There are two streams of Christianity coursing through Australia’s veins, one is protestant Christian and the other Roman Catholic. The comparisons are not so good. The Roman Catholic version of Christianity cannot change the decency and honesty of most of their followers, but most if not all students indoctrinated in Roman Catholic or Anglican schools never darken the door of a Church, except for weddings and funerals, and most of their Churches are in decline. This outcome is right on topic.

Roman Catholic thinking is like a virus that destroys society and is mostly promulgated by celibate men with great problems with normal sexuality. Only the Ukranian Catholics have a sensible approach to Priesthood. If a man is married he can become a Priest, but if a man is RC, and has been blessed with normal desires for women’s company, he is excluded. Many of my friends when young were Roman Catholic men, and they considered women far more important that God himself.

The real problem is that without the balance that comes from the union between a man and a woman, that marriage brings to a relationship, a man is twisted and inclined to spend his entire life scheming to oppress his fellow men and women. This virally bad thinking has infested both England and Australia since WWII and the tried and trusted Protestant system of Government has been abandoned for a Roman Catholic model. The Roman Catholic model cannot stand beside the Holy Bible. The English worked this out between 1215 and 1300, and legislated the New Testament as their Constitution.

It is time the Roman Catholic Church accepted the reality that their model of government is a failure. Despite all their efforts, very few people attend their churches, and many of those that do, do so out of fear not love. We are all compulsory members of a Church. Those of us who must attend Church (court) should have the choice, Protestant or Roman Catholic. A Protestant court must have a jury, not a Priest