Australian Story and St Mary's

Maybe it's the Mercury Retrograde this month but I just don't think I've been blogging the way I'd hoped to lately. There are varous topics I'd hoped to cover but am still to address and I seriously intend to get into them. One that has been constantly pushed to the back is my observations of the 'new regime' over at St Mary's. And in the last week, I've not only been to Mass at St Mary's again but also attend the monthly parish meeting.

However, last night Australian Story went to air with a programme not so much on St Mary's itself but on the two priests in the eye of the whole drama, Peter Kennedy and Terry Fitzpatrick. I didn't think I would see it as I was to be at my mother's last night. But she also wanted to watch it and so with my sister who was also there last night (and was a regular attender at St Mary's) we three sat down to watch it. And so today I am first going to make some obervations on the latest state of play of the 'exilists' in light of the Australian Story programme and then review a little of my own return from exile to St Mary's the parish at Sth Brisbane.

Last night's programme really was a form of hagiography an all too common feature nowadays of what was once a worthy show ; I agree with my flatmate's observation:

Unfortunately, Australian Story generally appears to be an outlet for PR spin, under the guise of human interest, and almost every episode, really, is quite an indictment of what the ABC should be about…

The hagiography was focused on the two priests and we were given an intimate glimpse of their private lives. Most intersting was the focus on Terry, who to date has been kept pretty much out of the spotlight. What we were presented was Father Terry, family man, because the hagiography revolved around Terry and his son, a family relationship which now also includes Peter Kennedy himself. The show provided glimpses of a domestic life of the two priests and the son almost like any other happy family, dare I say nuclear family. And coming after my last post on homosexual tradition and while I'm reading Irigaray's classic text, I couldn't but help feeling a certain irony about what I was viewing, an irony heightened by scenes of them together watching one of my favorite shows, Father Ted.

It's not my intention to comment on the details of their domestic lives. Indeed, I am pleased that Terry has taken his responsibilities as a parent seriously and openly. I wish more priests would do the same (priestly parenthood is much more common than people realise but it's more common for such f/Fathers to brush it aside and avoid their responsibilities). I'm also happy that Peter has been privileged to become a part of such a familial relationship in his old age after many years of celibacy and, presumably, loneliness. Celibacy can really only be lived in community - it's a monastic practice. When a person enters a convent/monastery they are joining a household and entering into a web of relationships focused around spiritual practice and other shared purposes. Celibacy really means unmarried and marriage itself has traditionally represented the entering into/establishing of a (patriarchal) familial household. Monks and nuns are not meant to be embedded in the ways of patriarchy and its family structures, hence they are celibate. But it is a great cruelty for the Roman church to expect its ordinary, non-monastic (and I use the term here broadly to signify life in religious communities, be they monastic, mendicant or 'service' oriented), parish clergy to live a life of celibacy, which of course also entails sexual abstinence, with all the associated sexphobia and homosexual panic, in a setting of an authoritarian hierarchy .

But to return to St Mary's, I really am puzzled by the major stress on the domestic and family life of the two priests in last night's show, except if to say in a hagiographical manner, these are just ordinary regular guys us like the rest of us. It was designed to make us like them but also to deflect from discussing any of the substantive issues involved. In that sense, then, the programme was dishonest.

I'm told that the priests were concerned that the programme might have revealed more than they intended. I don't know what they feared was revealed but they were correct, there were several moments of, I suspect, unintended revelation cutting through the fog of hagiography. I want now to highlight these moments because they shed a striking light on many of the substantive issues in the saga, issues that have been ignored by the media in their persistent and dishonest 'simple caring priests being victimised by evil authoritarian Rome' narrative.

The first relates to the odd recurring understory of Buddhism that just keeps cropping up. It's when Peter is heading off to his appearance on Q & A in Sydney. We see Peter and Terry heading off to the airport for his flight. In the car is a little Buddhist image. It's just a glimpse and I'm sure we glimpse a similar image at another moment in the show but I can't recall when. The image itself is none too special, I think Japanese in style, almost a bit of Buddhist kitsch, but I'm wondering if this is an example of what was in the church that caused all those dramas last year with the conservatives. In which case, I think it's quite dishonest to say that the image in the church was simply a representation of a monk. And the Buddha/ist image is then juxtaposed with Peter saying on Q & A, in response to whether he believes in the divinity of Christ, that 'we can't corroborate the existence of Jesus'. It's a point he's repeated in various public fora and I am frankly puzzled by what he intends by it. Would he say the same for Gautama Buddha (for which the same claim can be made quite justifiably, I would say). And if not, why not? Is Peter really signalling here that he no longer believes in anything of the Christian, let alone Catholic, package that as an ordained priest he is supposed to represent and sustain. A lot of good people have left the Roman Church, people I admire and have been influenced by, including many priests who left over celibacy and sexuality issues. So Peter would be in good company and if he's no longer a believer then leaving the priesthood would be an act of honesty in keeping with the Buddha's own dictum of right speech.

Not all the revelations in the show were by Peter and Terry themselves. There was an important moment of revelation from 'the other side', in the person of Adrian Farrelly, who for some reason terms himself Chancellor of the Brisbane Archdiocese (that title is actually held by
James Spence while Farrelly is Vicar Judicial UPDATE I have been informed that Spence retired a few months ago and that Farrelly has been appointed to the Chancellor position but at this time 1/6/09 the Archdiocese has yet to update its website). Farrelly's own contributions to the saga have been none too helpful, however, he cut through all the crap last night and said that if Peter had kept to authorised Eucharistic prayers and worn some vestments when celebrating the liturgy then none of this would have happened. In large part, Farrelly is correct. Questions of social justice and inclusion are a smokescreen here. The Archdiocese did not intervene because of St Mary's social justice work (which is carried out by Micah Projects, not the priests) or because of its commitment to inclusion of LGBT people. If the priests hadn't de-natured the Eucharist there in the last few years then there would have been no problem.

Except... and here the next revelation is just as crucial as Farrelly's. Peter Kennedy was talking about his interactions with Archbishop Bathersby and said words to the effect that every time he (Kennedy) saw him, Bathersby would regale him with 'all the complaints he was getting about Terry Fitzpatrick'. I've heard some of those complaints myself and they have nothing to do with social justice and inclusion. Quite the opposite, in fact. And as I have said repeatedly, Terry's status was one of the key issues raised in Bathersby's first letter to Kennedy last year. It's a fact that's been continuously ignored by the media's handling of the whole affair. Any reporter worth their salt should have been following up those complaints and indeed I've been told that up until now Kennedy has been concerned to keep Terry out of the spotlight as much as possible. Indeed the other intersting fact about last night's programme was that Terry was brought out into the open at all, if one can call such uncritical PR spin being out in the open.

Two other moments of revelation came in the final credits. We learn that Peter is still being paid by the Brisbane Archdiocese. Terry is not a priest of the Archdiocese and to my knowledge never has been. He was originally from Toowoomba but after all these years in Brisbane could hardly be on Toowomba's payroll. In the credits to last night's show we learn that Terry is paid by 'private supporters'.

They must pay him well, because the other and most disturbing revelation of last night's show came in the lead up to the departure into 'exile'. We see Terry coming down from the choir loft in the church with his golf clubs (golf is not a game of the poor) and fishing rod, all part of the packing up to move out. And he laments the fact that packing up the golf clubs and fishing rod brings home to him the reality of having to move. I'm surprised the programme makers didn't ask him why he was keeping such personal items IN THE CHURCH. Indeed to me it was indicative of a real blurring of boundaries that has been an ongoing pattern of behavior both publicly and privately (according to the complaints I've received) that represents priestcraft and clericalism of the worst kind. Both priests were treating the church of St Mary's as their own personal property. I know too that they took more than just their personal items from the church when they left. It seems, they stripped it of just about everything they could carry; even the vestments, I believe, went (curious given that both priests made the such an issue about not needing to wear vestments) and altar vessels. The piano was taken too on the basis that Peter Kennedy had put so many thousands of his own money towards it. The proper thing to have done was to have tabled a receipt to the Archdiocese for reimbursement. The piano belongs to the community of St Mary's which does not only comprise those who have gone into exile but the full community of people that have been part of it since it was founded in the 19th century and all those yet to come in the future. But it would appear that for Peter Kennedy the community 'c'est moi'. And so it comes as no suprise to hear that he has already excommunicated someone from the exile community for espousing ideas of which he doesn't approve. I know he was all too ready to excommunicate in the days before exile, a fact that is also behind the Archdiocesan intervention.

But to be quite honest, I'm really bored with writing about the two priests. I only took on this role because they had captured the media coverage of the affair and had seriously misrepresented what was really going on. And it appeared that no one was publicly prepared to challenge the spin that was being promoted through the media, apart from some of the silly conservatives who were taking unjustified credit for the Archdiocesan intevention. Let me put it as plainly as I can. Bathersby did not intervene because Rome told him too. He also did not intervene because he wanted to stop the social justice work of the parish. That work continues; it was never at risk from the Archdiocese. What was at issue was the behaviour and accountability of both Peter Kennedy, employed by the Archdiocese and Terry Fitzpatrick who was employed by no one and thus completely unaccountable to anyone. Such lack of accountablity led not only to them denaturing the key rituals that constitute a Catholic identity, it also led them to create their own quasi-religion, a hodge podge of new age Buddhism lite, ersatz Christianity with a sprinkling of appropriated indigenous religious forms to boot. They capped that off with an authoritarianism and abusive behaviour vis a vis individuals in the congregation, hence the many complaints Bathersby had received. What they had done was set up a Peter and Terry cult which bears little or no relation to social justice or inclusion but encouraged the worst aspects of priestcraft. And if I have labored the point it's because the media have been complicit in their whole spin exercise.

But to St Mary's itself, the parish, the forlorn bride. I have returned as has my flatmate, Mark. It was strange to be back there after all those years. I don't live in the area anymore but I don't want St Mary's to die; it has a rich history and a tradition of social justice and inclusion that must be honoured and maintained. And yes there are some conservatives who have turned up and want to turn things back to the way they used to be once upon a time. Once upon a time does not exist and it's to Ken Howell's credit that he is determined not to radically change the way things are done at St Mary's. I believe he was concerned to hear that the Pride Choir had packed up and moved out on the belief that they would be forced to leave. I'm told he wanted them to stay. Certainly the numbers at Mass now are small but that's to be expected given the history. And small numbers give a sense of intimacy which I like. I also like the somewhat impromptu nature of things; when you arrive you are likely to be asked if you want to do a reading, take up the collection, distribute communion etc. My first mass there I did the procesion for the gifts at the Offertory and last Sunday I found myself assisting the priest as a server. THe other positive thing too is that as Dean of the Cathedral, Ken Howell has a lot of other commitments so he shares his St Mary's role with a number of other priests. On Sunday the priest was from Australian Catholic University at Banyo and there is a very social justice oriented priest involved with the Timorese community who has also regularly celebrated Mass there. This diversity of priests is also a good thing, I think. I have also recognised some faces of people who I remember were very active at St Mary's back when I was going in the 90s. Clearly they did not decide to go into exile and they provide a valuable continuity.

Micah Projects is moving out of the old presbytery. It's not clear why. They say that it's 'to allow members and supporters to continue to access and participate in the work of Micah Projects regarless of where they choose to worship' and I seriously hope that connections are maintained between the organisation and the parish. My concerns are heightened by the fact that there are conservatives who love nothing more than to bring to an end the social justice traditions of the parish. I don't want to see that happen but I'm concerned that the media misrepresentations of what was going on at St Mary's might have given them a false sense of empowerment that is undeserved.

So it is my intent to get along to St Mary's and help out as often as I can. I would also hope that those who went into exile will reconsider and return. I suspect many think that the exile is only a temporary thing and that Peter and Terry will eventually be restored to the parish. I can't see how that can happen quite frankly. Mark observed about the exiles

I think the Exilists’ story does show a strange sort of pull away from an absent centre – towards the other. But a certain imaginary other, rather than the others in our midst. The centre might be the institutional church, or a space of privilege. But what’s not going on, I don’t think, is any decentring. There’s something in that centre, still – the priestly authority, and the particular priestly authority of Terry and Peter Kennedy. There’s a gesture towards the other, but I question how much the other is listened to, and more broadly.. there’s something of a spiritual emptiness within that core place.

I would agree. The path they have taken can only lead in one direction, a separate church, a separate denomination. I support and participate in Independent Catholicism myself. For those of us kept at the margins of the mainstream Catholic/Orthodox churches it can be a vital, even necessary way to balance the institutional homophobia and authoritarianism of the mainsteam. But a living religious community needs more to sustain itself than a cult of personality around its clerics. In the end it's not about priests, it's about a community, a living ongoing community of people. That was very much part of the magic of St Mary's. My hope is that the magic, which hasn't quite died, will be sustained and revive to flame forth anew, a beacon of hope once more.

And my next post before this month is over will be on matters biblical.