Peter Kennedy
Two fundamentals for religious worship are a belief in Jesus and faith in the power of prayer.
Peter Kennedy , a priest of St Mary’s Church, Brisbane, Australia, begs to differ. In 2009 he was kicked out of the Catholic Church for his unorthodox ideas.
Undeterred, the 72-year-old set up a thriving St Mary’s In Exile community so that he can continue preaching albeit well outside the narrow-minded parameters of Catholicism.
Tolerance and understanding of difference are high on his agenda, Kennedy recognises gay relationships and believes in equality for women; both fundamental positions the anachronistic Vatican authorities refuse to accept.
If there were such a thing as an interventionist God, he asks, why didn’t He intervene to stop the maniac’s recent killing spree in Oslo. One might well ask why God never seems to intervene to stop evil acts or prevent natural disasters. If He (She?) is not prepared to give us any sign why should we believe.
I am reminded of the story of atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell who was once asked what he would say to a deity if, when he died, he found there was indeed an afterlife. “I would ask why he didn’t give more evidence”, he replied.
A documentary film about the Aussie controversy – The Trouble With St Mary’s – was made earlier this year by Peter Hegedus
Kennedy’s services sound to me a lot like Humanism – “I think my way of prayer is to stand in wonder at the beauty of people and the wonder of life.”, he says.
I think the idea of people gathering to celebrate life , meditate and the show the value of community is a healthy idea – and if there more churches without christ I would be happy to join the congregation
Related link:
Priest without a prayer (Courier Mail.com)
Hi Martin, just wondering – what do you mean by ‘Christ’? Are you talking about god himself or Jesus-as-man or Jesus-as-messiah? Because, while I don’t believe in a god, I do believe jesus existed – but that he was an ordinary man. Either way, Jesus (in the guise of god’s son or not) has a lot of good things to say. It’s the rest of it that causes the trouble (old testament) – and a lot of that is based on fact too, like all mythology. I’m not sure Catholicism is too interested in the teachings of Jesus – since his words are about freeing the human soul, not enslaving it. Some of the stuff that didn’t make it into the bible even sounds like buddhism. The problem of religion comes from its interpretation and exploitation by those who seek power or satisfaction of their own agenda – the Qur’an forbids the kind of action people are now taking in its name, for example. These days, prayer has been replaced with ‘cosmic ordering’ – wishing for stuff will never be stamped out. I’m not sure why ‘jesus & faith in the the power or prayer’ are what needs to be ejected – far more harmful are notions such as eternal damnation, cardinal vice and original sin (the stuff catholicism thrives on). I think Jesus was all for ‘tolerance and understanding’ – “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” and all that…
Thanks for the stimulating comments, Rachael.
By Christ I mean Jesus as a messiah we are supposed to bow down and pray to.
Like you, I believe a Jesus figure did exist although he was not God’s son and I reckon the scripture’s accounts his ‘miracles’ include a fair bit of wishful thinking or poetic license on the part of the authors.
What Jesus preached was tolerance and compassion which we, and the Catholic church in particular, could learn a lot from.