Father Peter Kennedy in Defiant Mass at St Mary's

The Courier-Mail ^ | February 22, 2009 | Margaret Wenham

[Iscool]

Seems strange you guys would steal a Protestant Hymn and change the words so you could sing it...

Maybe we should start singing Ava Maria but change the name...

[dangus]

>> Seems strange you guys would steal a Protestant Hymn and change the words so you could sing it... <<

Wow, really? “Steal” a Protestant hymn. I could say something like “Strange you guys would steal a Catholic bible than delete all the books that didn’t fit your theology.

Truth be known, “Amazing Grace” isn’t very commonly used by Catholics. It’s just such a part of the popular culture that it’s occasionally requested for funerals. It’s so popular even folks from Vulcan have used it for funerals. (Mister Spock, Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan.)

Rather than tell grieving families (, etc.), “No, that’s not really a Catholic song,” it’s been permitted with minor modifications. A lot of Catholics, incidentally, are surprised that it’s not a Catholic song, incidentally, because of wordings like, “Amazing Grace, how sweet ...” which make it seem like it was perhaps translated from Latin.

[dangus]

Oh, and please do feel free to use the Ave Maria. It’s mostly in that book you stole from us ;^). Except y’all already changed the lyrics, changing “kecharitoomene” to “charitoo” so “having received full grace” becomes merely “highly favored one.”

[marshmallow]

Using a bushfire analogy, St Mary's priest of 28 years said that there were "spot fires" of dissent around Australia and the world. "This sort of community could actually set those fires off," he said at a media conference after the service.

Fire. What an appropriate metaphor, albeit unintended.

Actually Father, the global trend is in the opposite direction. The fires have been burning for four decades or longer. In many places, they've been burning out of control. Now however, there are signs that many are being tamed and put out.

Sporadic flare ups still occur from time to time. Your parish is one of them.

A fire helicopter with monsoon bucket will be arriving shortly. Please stand by.

[COBOL2Java]

But here we see a man leading numerous souls astray and acting to sow schism in the Church, and the bishop, who admits to knowing that the actions of the priest are wrong, is simply sitting idle while people may actually be dragged down to hell. As bad as the priest is it is bishops of this sort that actually bear the responsibility for these errors and heresies.

Lends credence to the quote: "The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops".

[RobbyS]

It would send a single, if the church were desacrilized, even more of it were obliterated.