Saint Mary's in Exile - Brisbane

First RC rule of obedience:

Don’t let the local bishop get into your pants – your pants pocket that is – the one with the deed to the church in it.

Once Rome or the local bishop has the deed, they can throw you out with any excuse and like any other slumlord. And sell your church to meet walking around petty cash expenses.

Looks like Father Kennedy of St Mary’s of Brisbane fame is learning the fine points of the fine print of boilerplate real estate contracts with the official RC Church.

Want to preach and live 95% of the whole Cultural Catholic thing and skip the 5% BULLSHIT imposed by the prissy guys in dresses – Form your own RC church parish and don’t surrender the deed.

One can see far reaching possibilities in the RC people of God who care and believe in themselves and within the cultural context of Christian fellowship to continue an energetic and viable church ministry – with less interference from church bureaucrats.

Rebel priest forms ‘church in exile’

Sacked St Mary's priest, Father Peter Kennedy has announced that he will be forming a "church in exile" only a few blocks from St Mary's Catholic Church in South Brisbane, after Fr Kennedy and the archdiocese of Brisbane reached an agreement in arbitration…

Father Kennedy said the Archbishop would not be able to stop him from forming another congregation of the Catholic Church.

"The Archbishop told me that himself," Fr Kennedy said.

Rebel priest Peter Kennedy expects congregation to follow him

Fr Kennedy, a priest for 44 years including 28 at St Mary's, said he still rejected Archbishop Bathersby's claim that St Mary's was operating outside the Church.

"We've lost the fight but have we lost the battle?" Fr Kennedy said.

He predicted the Catholic Church was "pragmatic enough" to change radically, including allowing women to become leaders.

"The Church when it is facing annihilation can turn itself around," he said.

Fr Kennedy said he was not afraid of being excommunicated, because the move was "just words".

"They can't burn you at the stake these days," he said. "We live, thank God, in a liberal-democratic society.

"That's the question the Church has to face: How it can be a feudal system working in a liberal democracy."

Enough said for the moment. And good luck.

Cain - The King

Shortly there after Adam and Eve, the trailer trash couple, recently evicted from Paradise Trailer Park, go on their way and struggle without a guide book through life.

Years later, the two grown sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel go at it for love of an abstract God. “God loves me more!” No he doesn’t!” Etc.

Cain kills Abel and wanders the earth with his wife (where did she come from – his sister?). There are problems with believing only in a literal belief of the Bible especially if you believe that every word comes exclusively from the God person.

The RC church treats the creation myth of Adam and Eve as more or less allegory, except for the Original Sin thing, in that the bottom line of belief is that the first man and woman were the first creatures that God gave souls to.

The literalists, the fundamentalists live, breath and consume the words of God of the Bible thing quite literally.

Perhaps I am a minimalist and a little bit religionist in that I do believe mathematically that someone, two at least, is, are, the beginning of the line of the human race.

Without going into a debate about ancient literary flaws in the Old Testament, perhaps you can get a closer look or at least a closer feel for the murder, incest thing of the Cain, Abel story in the movie The King:

The King

The title is I think a play on words of the first name of the main character Elvis, (Gael Garcia Bernal) looking up a father he has never known, a fundamentalist preacher, (William Hurt), in Corpus Christi Texas.

I won’t give all the plot away but for me at least, I understood the underlying biblical story played out in a modern setting. Other than that be forewarned, about this strange sleeper classic. There is an element of evil there. Rather than turn away or turn off this flick, I was strangely drawn to it not unlike a moth to a porch light.

The human race and the human condition is or is not always portrayed correctly in the Bible, a very human book about humanity.