St Mary's priest will take his flock with him (renegade priest to break with Rome)

MAVERICK priest Father Peter Kennedy says he will lead a breakaway congregation if Brisbane's catholic Archbishop forces him to leave St Mary's Church.

There are fears that exclusion from the historic South Brisbane property will be the final act in a long-running dispute that has reached the Vatican. The dispute has attracted national and international attention because it represents the battle between conservative and less traditional forces within the Catholic Church.

There are more Roman Catholics in Australia than any other religious group. Each week, St Mary's attracts large congregations while many more orthodox Catholic parishes struggle to fill pews. In a rare and exclusive interview, Father Kennedy said he was determined to carry on. "The reality is that, if we are excluded from this church, the Trades and Labor Council have already offered us their place just down the road," he said. "I will continue. Our community will continue down there. We get 800 to 900 people coming every week. It's a vibrant, alive mass with people from all over the city."

St Mary's is known for its unconventional Catholic practices - allowing women to preach, blessing homosexual couples and recognising with ritual the traditional sovereignty of the indigenous people of the area. The latest round in the battle was sparked by a complaint direct to the Vatican in August from an aggrieved church-goer.

Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby accused the parish of operating outside the accepted practices of the Roman Catholic Church and encouraged Father Kennedy to fall in line or face closure. The parishioners responded to the accusations but - in a follow-up letter to Father Kennedy, dated December 22 - Archbishop Bathersby said: "St Mary's has not yet adequately given proof of its communion with the Archdiocese of Brisbane and the Roman Catholic Church."

What a convoluted discussion. I’m saying, using YOUR logic, that Catholics all over America, 2 months ago, voted for a pro choice candidate (who also voted in favor of partial birth abortion) for their own reasons (eye of the beholder) and the alternative was no where near the absurd examples you gave and this is not an “alternative universe”. This is NOW.

They apply your logic and you seem more concerned with giving ridiculous examples to support your blather rather than acknowledging it is already happening. And, it happened all over the U.S. given the turnover of congress. The position you promote that voting behavior is acceptable because they chose their big “carefully derived opinions” gives passive consent to the pro choice platform. Catholic vote has not been unified on many issues, some, like pro life, is a no brainer. Or should be. But it isn’t. So, I don’t give time to hypothetical b.s. when we can clearly see Catholics all over are betraying the sacred position of life for no good reason.

As for blessing gays, I said I oppose hatred. I do NOT support calling gay couples forward and blessing their coupleness and said the article was poorly written and lacked information about what happened. If the vatican removes him, I will know the priest violated his vows and I do not support that and said so.

You are NOT using MY logic. Or at least you aren't using it well.

From my first comment on your bishop's cryptic letter -- or your cryptic recollection of your bishop's letter, I was speaking abstractly, as was evident to the other readers. You did not present the problem as necessarily pertaining to Obama. My answer did not pertain to Obama. The language that you presented was general. I responded considering the general case, NOT this case.

You seem to insist that since there is disagreement about matters of prudential judgment, prudential judgment ought not to be appealed to. You say "eye of the beholder" as though matters of prudence were like matters of taste. But they aren't. They are matters of reason; they have right answers and wrong answers. It's not the fault of the principle that many RC dunderheads voted for Obama. It's that either they didn't use the principle or they used it wrongly. Some of them may have applied my logic, but they didn't apply reason to the evaluation of the circumstances, or at least not successfully.

So, Now I'm getting that you responded against the people who had read the article and knew what was going on by defending what they were not attacking, and now you're doing the same thing to me. You present a, (incomprehensible) generality about voting for a not this particular pro-abortion candidate. I respond that in some cases it would be licit.

Then not troubling to distinguish between what I said or to note what YOU in fact said, you begin to suggest that I voted for Obama and am trying to get cover for doing so. THEN you act like prudence was in the eye of the beholder and suggest that my line of thought is essentially liberal.

It's not, it's orthodox.

you seem more concerned with giving ridiculous examples to support your blather rather than acknowledging it is already happening.
and
So, I don’t give time to hypothetical b.s. when we can clearly see Catholics all over are betraying the sacred position of life for no good reason.

Ah, you don't practice using reason. That explains a lot. I say again, you quoted an incomprehensibly expressed generality (which maybe you didn't quite understand) but meant a specific. It might have helped if you had said so. My mind-reading skills don't work well through the net and usually I have to rely on the words I read.

I oppose hatred

Oh wow. That's great. Too bad nobody but you was talking about hatred.

THE BEST ANSWER AWARDS
Ladies and gentlemen, throughout this lengthy, sometimes frustrating, sometimes amusing but surely interesting discussion, I felt it appropriate as the catalyst of the discussion, that I conclude my postings here with a few awards.

Funniest posting award
Post 144 by Jeff Chandler
"After having been raised by a woman, having lived with a woman for 32 years, and having raised three women, I can state with much authority and confidence that not only do all women feel the need to speak, they do indeed speak at every possible occasion."

EARNEST AWARD
AnAmericanMother
For posting, pinging new participants, multi c.c. responses, and the overall contribution of the historic significance of the Episcopalians to the question at hand.

i can change my mind if i want to AWARD
Frogjerk - Posting in response to Priests were able to marry at one time.
Post 166 "Prove it. This is a lie."
Post 169 "Peter was married and so were some of the early priests but so what."

BEST ADVICE AWARD
Wiley
"Please choose a different term for the kind of women’s vocation you are talking about."

difficult to follow ADVICE AWARD
Frog -
"Go back to around 300-400 AD and read some of the documents of the Church councils back then."

I'M SORRY I DIDN'T HAVE MORE TIME TO WRITE YOU A SHORTER POSTING BUT THIS WAY I CAN GO AROUND IN CIRCLES FOR A VERY LONG TIME and confuse the followers AWARD
Mad Dawg

THE PEACEMAKER AWARD
Post 159 by Dr. Sivana

BEST ANSWER AWARD
Post 53 by kstewskis

Try not to miss me too much.

"Listen with the ear of your heart." St. Benedict

Am I right in assuming that this is your way of saying that you have no arguments and no interest in argument.

I especially enjoyed the part where sound Church teaching was said to be an attempt to get cover for my vote for Obama.

And more than that, I enjoyed the readiness with which you took responsibility for misunderstanding the article that the thread was about ("so poorly written" I think you said).

Do have a nice time. It's always interesting to meet someone who is error free and "wise in their own conceits".

From the article:- He was a Jew. And he certainly wasn't a Catholic and he didn't start the Catholic Church. He didn't start any church.

Mr.Kennedy,it appears did not get as far as

Matthew 16:18. Where it states that:-

Jesus saith unto Peter,

"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

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