Epistle From Oz - Peter Kennedy - SMX - St. Mary's In Exile Brisbane

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH A POWER FOR GOOD IN THE WORLD?”

2011 Melbourne series Melbourne Town Hall -  November 15, 2011

For more than two millennia, the Catholic Church has been the author and repository of some of the highest ideals of humanity. Yet, as humanity is flawed, so is the Church. Few would deny that the Catholic Church has dark chapters in its history. However, do these darker moments unfairly obscure the light – perhaps because so much is expected of an institution that claims to bridge the sacred and secular? Or is the Catholic Church simply the most ancient of wolves in sheep’s clothing?

Father Peter Kennedy

In 2009 the ABC Australian Story produced a feature film entitled “Holier Than Thou” which documented our forced removal from St Mary’s Church in South Brisbane into Exile.

At the end of the filming of our story at Natural Bridge in Qld I went down with the production team for a coffee at the roadside café on the road between Nerang in Qld and Murwillumbah in NSW. As we sat down on the veranda a classic Aussie bloke dressed in stubbies and thongs shot a glance in my direction and pointed me out to his wife. Shortly after they got up to leave and he put his hands on his hips, looked down to me and said “Stick it up ‘em mate”. A little surprised, I half stood up and said “what’s your name mate” and he said “it doesn’t matter what my name is mate, just stick it up ‘em”.

Only later did I realise how pivotal that encounter was for me – a light bulb moment, a road to Damascus moment, except it was on the road to Murwillumbah.

The insight that arose was that the ordinary man and woman, the bulk of the church’s membership, the battlers, the mums and dads, who built the churches, hospitals, schools -  who were loyal all their lives to the church to its bishops, priests religions and its rules and regulations, its doctrines and its dogmas -  frankly -  had had enough -  they were voiceless in a church ruled by an elite, clerical caste who demanded and expected that the “laity” that derogative term, should just pray, pay and obey. They have had it up to here and they’ve left in their hundreds of thousands, never to come back -“stick it up ‘em mate”!

My argument is simple: – that the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church that arrogantly refuses to allow its membership, its most loyal supporters, a voice in its governance cannot be a force for good in today’s world where increasingly democracy and human rights is the primal cry of people who know the pain and suffering and disempowerment of dictatorships – especially women.

The Roman Catholic Church is such a totalitarian regime e.g. to become a bishop, male of course, a priest has to promise obedience of mind and will, to one man  the bishop of Rome, the Pope, in whom all authority resides.

To argue that Jesus established the church in this way and that the church cannot be more democratic, involving the people in its governance, is based on a fiction, a lie – known as apostolic succession,

Stay with me… the bishops claim to be the successors of the twelve apostles with the bishop of Rome claiming to be the successor of the apostle Peter, who was no.1 in Team Jesus. They argue they have that same authority to rule over the church today. Please note it is an authority of power – it ought to be an authority of love.

The Pope as No.1, claims to be – wait for it – the Vicar of Christ- well, I don’t know about you, but from my reading of the gospels I think Jesus would be far more at home with the Vicar of Dibley!

The facts are very different. In the first 3 centuries of  Christianity in the various communities of faith that dotted the Mediterranean there was no one form of liturgy, no one form of governance, no one theology. Instead you had communities of equals where both women and men exercised the various gifts given to them by the Spirit.  e.g. The gift of leadership, the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy, the gift of preaching etc.

In the 4th Century of the C..E the Pagan Emperor Constantine used the fledging literalist community in Rome to unify his empire. In order to bolster their claims to authority, the church leaders invented the fiction of Apostolic Succession which is still the basis of governance in the Roman Catholic Church today.

As Harvey Cox, Emeritus Professor at Harvard writes in his book “The Future of Faith” – “as the empire became notionally Christian, the church that had been from its beginning fiercely anti – imperial became its fawning imitators blurring the essence of Christianity almost beyond recognition.

The paradox is that when the Roman Empire collapsed, up bobbed a pseudo-religious empire – the Roman Catholic Church. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 17th Century wrote – “the Church, the papacy became nothing other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting on the grave thereof

Let me now speak from my own experience and that of our community, now in exile in our struggle with such absolute, ruthless and callous authority.

On that fateful day when I saw the Archbishop in 2008 as I was leaving his office, I turned towards him and with some compassion said “You know John, you are going to cop a fair bit of flak from our community”.

He paused and said “This is the Roman Catholic Church. You put me in a corner and I’ll come out fighting”.

People began writing to him respectfully and as intelligent people of faith. He wrote to me saying “if you think that what they’re saying is going to change my mind, let me tell you, it will do the very opposite.” He added “I obey the Pope, you should obey me, and they should obey you”

I tell you this – not to denigrate the Archbishop but to indicate to you the mindset of total obedience of the bishops of the church to absolute Roman Papal authority.

Such an undemocratic church cannot be a force for good in today’s world. Until the Church falls unto the hands of the people it cannot be a significant player in today’s world  – a world that demands and expects that the voice of the people be heard. -- Peter Kennedy

Search for Spirituality - Peter Kennedy

Perspective on God, the Universe and my place in It

It is an overcast spring day.  It has been a long winter.  Buds are on the trees.  Grass is in need of first trimming.  And I have to think about how the universe is unfolding…  

In a way, as a man in middle age and transitioning away from the things of youth, I have to adjust my point of view or perspective of it.  It, in this case, represents many things.

Rather than foster a fear of death, which statistically I am getting closer to, I must foster a new understanding of my present life.  I am in life.  Death is still a constant unknown.  

If you are a minimalist in beliefs as I am, you might want to cling to the mythologies attached to an afterlife.  The tail end of most pie eating preachers is a Disneyesque fairy story land of the hereafter.

Even though I believe in an afterlife, I have no idea what form it might take.

Do I believe in reincarnation?  Was not raised in a culture that fosters such beliefs.

Is there reincarnation?  Do not know.  I will find out when I get there so to speak.

My own interpretation of an afterlife has to do with a perhaps spiritual experience that took place six months after the death of my father; I somehow sensed a message received from that other side.  The message was something to the effect that “I’m okay” wherever and thereafter.  

Kind of like an old ancient texting thing called a telegram.  You pay per word.  Must be expensive to send messages from the other side if you only get an occasional “I’m okay”.   Still, brevity in good communication is truly an art form.

If I must wander with my mind as to what the other side is like, I borrow a minimalist view of Native Americans who called their paradise the “happy hunting ground” under the protection of the “Great Spirit”.

Whether the afterlife is eternal or temporary, I cannot tell you.  All that I feel for certain is that it is there somewhere down my road of life, passed this life.

Putting aside complex ideas and or simplistic minimalist versions of things, I have to paint a fuller picture of what I believe. 

A lot of really unanswered questions.  Why am I so unkind to mention them?  Well, if you reject what ninety eight percent of religion has accumulated in these many centuries; you have to feel some comfort in cleaning out the attic so to speak.

Rereading some of my past postings, I have to agree or disagree, if what I said in the past still sounds valid to me after time.  Has the wine aged right or will it be a poor vintage?

Looking back I agree with everything I stated in:

This Cultural Christian’s Creed

As Holy Man and Prophet, he is first among equals of all men born of women, and is the way, truth, light and path to a higher level of understanding of things human and spiritual. 

(A little bit formal or stiff, the creed that is.  Needs a little better grammatical polish and word flow?  But basically correct from my point of view since I choose to frame my spirituality within some old Christian ideas and ideals.) 

As for Jesus being a holy man and prophet.  The bottom line is that we do not know very much about who he was or what his mission in life was.  If you start writing about him thirty to a hundred years after his time on earth, there is an awful lot of gaps and speculation in the Greek play like setting of his story.

To save the world by his teachings as we know them?  Most definitely.  All good and true prophets try to share what is in their hearts with others.

As a divine son of God?  We are all children of God.  More on than later.

I could write several books on the speculation that keeps piling up in my mind regarding what I, by default, call him as Holy Man and Prophet.

There may not be much conflict on the idea of him as a holy man.  The problem I think lies in the question of what really is a prophet.  To which I refer to another of my other postings.

Modern age prophets – an insight 

From two homilies delivered at St. Mary’s in Exile (SMX) in Brisbane Australia.  

First from the homily of Dermot Dorgan –SMX- July 4-5 2009 

A biblical prophet is one who conveys a message from God to a particular time and place. They’re not, contrary to popular belief, people who can foresee the future. They are rather people gifted with an ability to see deeply into the present, to look below the surface of society and see the undercurrents and hidden realities that determine what is happening or will happen. The word “Seer” is a good description. … 

Next from the homily of Peter Kennedy –SMX-July 19, 2009 

…Most of all, I think that our seeking to find new ways of speaking about God is a prophetic act. We do this in baptism when we use the words creator, liberator and sustainer of life. It can be seen as a recognition that all the language we use about God has to be metaphorical language. The one thing we know for certain about God is that God is Other, God is different. God does not belong to this universe of which we are a part. And yet the only language we have is human language.  

We know from ordinary conversation that we sometimes have to say things two or three times in different ways before we can adequately express a feeling or an experience. There must be a million ways to describe the experience of being in love, all of them inadequate. But if some authority were to come along and say, “Look, all this multiplicity of words is downright confusing. From now on, we’re going to have one formula for expressing this experience, and here it is – blah blah blah. 

From now on this is the only orthodox way of expressing this experience. All other expressions are inaccurate and invalid. Well, we can see how ridiculous this is. But we’re tied to certain fixed expressions of the experience of God, and I believe it is a prophetic act – the act in fact of adult Christians - to look for other ways of expressing our experience…

In a sense if you look at the world as I see it, God the creative force set the Universe in motion.  God in the form of a Holy Spirit still keeps and orders inventory from time to time but comes and goes most times like the wind as described in sacred text.

The idea that God set the world in motion is called Deism.  That he, she or it is distant leaves the gap in between that beginning event and my present spot on a timeline away from that event.

As such, in the world where I believe in the divine spark of creation, I have to believe in what thousands of preachers, holy men, theologians and prophets have been searching for -  I have to believe in the possibility of a divine spark within.  

As such I am not so much a surrogate of God as creator in a cold distant Deist existence as I am a temporary holder, safe guarder of the divine spark within during this temporary timeline existence.  Whether we had that spark within before birth and keep it afterwards passed death, I do not know. 

I refuse to let fear of death make me believe in fairy tales and stone age mythology regarding God and God worship and God financial accounting which is what most spiritual beliefs seem to  transcend into after a few generations from the founding of any new idea about God.

We are all or have the potential of being prophets just like Jesus - or dare I say it, like a Moses, Mohammed and even Joe Smith.  Of course, I don’t believe in magic texts appearing out of nowhere.  Whatever.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  

Of course nothing I say or speculate about can be proven.  The very creation of the universe cannot be proven.  It is not that religion and scientific theory are incompatible; it is just that neither can be disproven either. 

Compatible?  Hardly.  More like apples and oranges.  Or kinda like two small fingers on two hands of the same body.  

Depends on how you look at it and or want to scream at the other side in a debate.  Which is what a lot of so-called pro or anti-atheism is presently about?  A modern perspective on God?

I do not want to get too deep here.  It was just that some of my thoughts past and present seemed to have merged together on a cloudy spring day with buds on the trees and grass in need of first trimming – as the universe continues to unfold, with or without us, here, now, and into future tense.

Brian O’Hanlon – SMX – Homily March 26-27

Again, down under, an interesting homily from the St. Mary’s in Exile (SMX) community in Brisbane, Australia.

Faith community versus belief community is mentioned as well as the future of the faith in terms of a community living the word (God) through justice, compassion and love…

Brian O’Hanlon – SMX – Homily March 26-27

I was fortunate enough through the enthusiasm of my wife, Angela, to discover this community a long time ago – 1988 I think, and I have been a fairly regular attendee ever since.  Certainly I have been a constant attendee since, to borrow a term from the Irish, “since the troubles”, the troubles of exile. 

Peter in a homily towards the end of 2010 when restating his vision of this community, emphasised that we are a faith community not a belief community. A faith community is one developing a spiritually of Justice Compassion and Love. More recently he restated the value of the mystical contemplative tradition in Christianity traditionally suppressed throughout history. This implies  a letting go of, a freeing up from,  much if not all of our classical conditioning of religious tradition,( Recently at a friends wedding-a nuptial mass, I was sitting next to a women , who at the end of the ceremony commented “ that was scary- I have not been inside a catholic church for 25 years, yet I just knew how to do everything), or there could be a shifting of the core of our traditional stories and belief systems; if this is so what do we have left, what do we replace it with? What do we develop as the core of our own practice. According to Fr Richard Rohr OSM the oppositional mindset that was set in place after the reformation of the 16^th century, and after the enlightment of the 17^th and 18^th centuries meant that the ancient tradition of gaining spiritually through meditation was lost. We lost the older tradition of praying beyond words. I want to propose that this is what we can develop, praying beyond words, meditation-a vehicle for our spiritual pathway.

For a long time I have thought that the Book of James was the most useful, social and practical of the gospel writings; James warned against taking the Pauline view of Christianity to an extreme where Paul urged his followers to put their faith in Christ (i.e. what to believe, one who would deliver them).  James called his listeners to action, “Faith without works is dead, be doers of the word and not hearers only.  Religion that is pure and undefiled is this – to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep ones-self unstained from the world” – to keep ones-self unstained from the world – what is this? Christians are very good at relieving the struggling and suffering of others-there are helping missions in every part of the world, just look at the community support provided during our natural disasters, out of this faith community Micha arose, and I am sure that nearly all of us are caring for family, relatives or friends; visiting the widow in her affliction, and as well there does seem in our community a growing interest in the spiritual/contemplative tradition, through the transformative experience of meditation, a way of remaining unstained from the world, our pastors refer to it in various ways, the Eckhart Tolle CD’s are taken home each week, and many books referring to the subject are sold, at  the drop in shop, the existing meditation groups are regularly attended. 

Jesus, it now seems, was primarily a teacher, a sage who bequeathed to his followers principles by which to live, not a body of eternally fixed doctrine that he expected people to believe. 

The teachings that Jesus bequeathed to us focused not on believing but on doing.  Even before the term ‘Christian’ (originally with a derogatory meaning)  came into use, the first Jesus-followers were attempting to practise the kind of life he taught.  They called it ‘The Way’. 

An ancient book called ‘The Didache’ (a Greek word meaning ‘teaching’) throws considerable light on this. 

It is interesting to find that the Didache has preserved the primitive label, ‘The Way’.  This is how it starts off: ‘There are two ways , one of life and one of death, but there is a great difference between the two ways’.  In its short description of the Way of Death we find listed all the commonly acknowledged human crimes and misdemeanours that are condemned in almost every culture.  But the emphasis of the Didache is on the Way of Life.  Listen to how it continues:

The way of life is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbour as yourself, and not do to another what you would not want done to you...

Terry Fitzpatrick – SMX – Homily March 19-20

I was touched by the beauty and simplicity of this written homily from Oz, at St. Mary’s in Exile (SMX)  community/ congregation in Brisbane Australia.  Here is the middle portion of that homily.  Full homily on link below.


Terry Fitzpatrick – SMX – Homily March 19-20 

… The message of Jesus in today’s gospel challenges such attempts to guarantee an encounter with the divine or the ground of our being. Peter in today’s gospel wants to make camp on the mountain. He wants to build 3 tents, 3 material structures, and capture this experience for as long as possible. As Jesus demonstrates, this encounter cannot be contained or restrained within any structure. As he says to the woman at the well in John’s gospel, we don’t need a temple to worship God. Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The hour is coming when true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth.

 For God is spirit, and those who worship, must worship in spirit and truth. A central message of Lent is demonstrated in the opening ritual on Ash Wednesday, when we are signed with Ash with the words, “Remember you are but Dust, and unto Dust you shall return. A sharp reminder, that all of life is impermanent. All is passing away. If we embrace this, says the Buddha, then we let go of most of our suffering. Constantly embracing this knowledge that all is impermanent, we embrace a life of letting go, knowing that “This too will pass”. The Buddhist Pali word, Anicca, this too will pass. As we look at all of life, we might say to ourselves, this too will pass, “let go”.

 As Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh so wisely shares “If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent, It is because you believe things are permanent”. Life is constantly inviting us to Let Go – don’t cling to this – this body, this house, this job, this relationship and this everything – it is not permanent.

 It is not an easy thing to do for us humans, who seek for security and happiness in the external material world and again need to be reminded, Over and over – don’t cling to this – it too is passing.

But there is another aspect to Lent, to the universal story, the spiritual journey. We could equally be signed on Ash Wednesday with candle wax, with the  words, remember you are light and unto light you shall return; or with sea water “remember you are the wave and unto the ocean you shall return”.

 A reminder that behind the form is the formless, one life, the ground of our being, God.

As Peter says in the gospel today “It is good for us to be here”-experiencing the ground of Being, the one light. It is something we can experience at all times, not just on mountain tops, but in all places; this, the formless one life behind all form. This is our true nature, who we really are.

For 12^th century mystic Meister Eckhart there are few aspects more important in the spiritual life than to awaken to this divine ground within, to flow into it and merge wit it, like the wave into the ocean. The light of God dwells within us, which means that we, like Christ, are also the light of the world (Matthew 5¹²). The discovery of this inner radiance that saturates our very being is the one important taste in life, according to Eckhart, who calls out to us from the 12^th century, “ Awaken, discover who you are ! Close your eyes and see the radiant light within you.”

Behind the impermanence of our life is the permanent one life that we really are immersed in-life, like the wave into the ocean…

God the Creator Liberator and Sustainer of Life

Just got my little care package from Father Peter Kennedy’s true faith church on the Internet. I thought maybe they forgot me and were not sending out anymore care packages into the big ugly world anymore. I thought that this Christian church had failed in the face of opposition and pressure from the big organized RC Institution. Actually, the message ended up in my spam queue and I had not checked there lately.

If this was the early Christian Church and I was someone who could read and write I would be standing on my doorstep reading parts of a letter, a letter from Father Kennedy. Later I just might be giving a synopsis of the letter as a story with the letter itself and with the accumulated stories in general of true Apostles of Jesus such as Fathers Kennedy and Fitzpatrick preaching the Good News in Brisbane, Oz.

Sorry I can’t You Tube a few minutes of the Father Kennedy’s sermon. The text of the sermons are usually a few weeks behind in transcription. Father Kennedy was talking about the Theology of Anxiety as described by some author. The gist of the message was that the Big Organized Church is an Institution of Compromise – one where the fear of the devil exceeds the Love of God. This conforms with my minimalist view that fundamentalism and the big ritual institutions – love the Book – Love the Rule Book – more than they love God or God’s creation man and woman.

St Mary's Catholic Community in EXILE

I invite you if you have ten to fifteen minutes to listen and watch a video of his sermon on their site. Have to confess that I don’t always watch every minute of the service. I am not a member in good standing of that far away community. ((sorry, video no longer available - 24 nov 2011))

Father Kennedy’s sermon led into a baptism of a little girl Jesse conducted by Father Terry. I was most impressed with the casualness and the informality of it all as evidenced by lay participation. I was impressed that the child had three godmothers ( one can never have enough godmothers ) and a godfather who managed to miss the service.

The words of baptism are the Politically Incorrect Words that got Father Kennedy and his parish in trouble. The child of God Jesse Thomas was baptized in the name of God the Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer of Life (for centuries referred to as Father, Son, Holy Spirit).

Along with many healthy shoots taking root in the soil of life everywhere redefining the original and blessed message of Jesus, Saint Mary’s in Exile is still alive, well and thriving six months into a journey full of grace.