Lepanto’s perspective on Fr Peter Kennedy and his Catholic Community of St Mary’s, also known as the “People’s Republic of St Mary’s”, was outlined in February: that Fr Kennedy’s sense of “oneness” represents a world view in which we are all “God”, the Christian God no longer being understood as separate from and above the universe; that Fr Kennedy’s view amounted to a denial of the central Christian understanding of the Trinity and Jesus Christ and was a classic statement of the neo-Gnostic, New Age position. Lepanto identified a parallel between Fr Kennedy and the dismissed American Dominican Fr Matthew Fox and Fox’s New Age, Goddess-friendly, effectively pagan spirituality.

Naturally, Lepanto offered Fr Kennedy a right of reply: “Should Fr Kennedy have an interest in further clarifying his position or in responding, Lepanto is prepared to print whatever he may have to say.”

There has been no response from Fr Kennedy. No surprises there. Nonetheless, in a still unfolding process of public self-revelation, Fr Kennedy has progressively been placing more of his worldview on the public record, and in so doing has rendered further confirmation of the view taken by Lepanto. For more on this, see the companion presentation on page 4 in this issue, “More on Peter Kennedy and Gnosis: Jesus as ‘myth’ and ‘symbol’ of the ‘journey’”.

Fr Kennedy’s public references to and favourable view on Gnosticism, Advaita Hinduism and the Kabbalah represent nothing less than an endorsement of esoteric traditions and, for that matter, paganism.

Fr Kennedy’s increasingly more explicit Gnosticism, neo-Gnosticism if you like, has been neither unexpected nor surprising. A significant body of evidence from St Mary’s had previously pointed in that direction:

• the St Mary’s baptismal signifiers “creator”, “liberator” and “sustainer” were open to a wide range of interpretation, pagan as well as Christian;

• the meditation approaches on offer at St Mary’s were drawn from Gnostic and pagan traditions;

• the books being promoted and sold at St Mary’s were of a Gnostic and pagan character;

• the St Mary’s Liturgy of the Eucharist reference to “communion with the earth”, printed weekly in the St Mary’s newsletter, was open to a range of Gnostic and pagan interpretations; and

• the culture at St Mary’s reflected a rejection of biblical and Christian morality.

“A Buddhist statue in a Catholic Church or sanctuary just does not make sense … only extreme recklessness would place a Buddhist statue in a Christian Church.”

What may perhaps surprise is how little of the above, Buddhist statue aside, translated into the official pronouncements of the archdiocese. The letters from the archbishop spoke of matters of faith, liturgy, governance and authority. The detailed explanations on offer in the Catholic Leader by Fr Tom Elich and Fr David Pascoe concerned respectively, liturgy and authority. The archdiocesan Chancellor Fr Adrian Farrelly referred to the archbishop’s having “lost confidence in Fr Peter’s willingness to present Jesus to his people in the Catholic way”. Sir Humphrey could not have expressed it more delicately or in more minimalist terms.

In the archdiocese of Brisbane, a spade is not necessarily the proverbial shovel; a spade can sometimes be more like a trowel. On the archdiocesan side, the dispute with Fr Kennedy was managed almost as if it were simply an in-house disagreement among like-minded members of a friendly society. Fr Kennedy knew he had broken the rules of, as he put it, the “club”. The decision to leave was his choice; both for him and for the archbishop, arguably more a matter of practice than belief.

There is a clearly discernible pattern in the archdiocese’s message management. In avoiding reference to the New Age and the Gnostic, the Archbishop and his various spokespeople maintain their longstanding practice of not naming and not dealing with the New Age and its many and various manifestations in the archdiocese of Brisbane. There are few Vatican documents as little mentioned in this archdiocese as 2003’s “Jesus Christ, The Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian reflection on the ‘New Age’”. That, of course, raises the wider issue relating to St Mary’s: that Fr Peter Kennedy was not such a great exception.

The fault lines within the archdiocese have been very much in evidence in the range of reactions to the exodus of Fr Kennedy and his followers from St Mary’s. As we are all aware, there is no shortage of Catholics, priests included, who were sympathetic to or supported Fr Kennedy in his dispute with the archbishop. By way of example, see the statement circulated by Fr Wrex Woolnough of Caboolture, reproduced in full on page 5.

Fr Woolnough’s statement may verge on the intemperate but it is far from unrepresentative. There are others around the archdiocese with even more clearly defined, if more discreet views. As for the Catholic Gnostics in residence, they see their ranks continuing to increase, Fr Kennedy’s departure notwithstanding. The Gnostics around the archdiocese remain outwardly relaxed and comfortable, some almost establishment figures despite their extra-curricular activities. Just as Peter Kennedy once did, Womenspace, Earthlink and other groups continue to operate openly and without fear. “We are all Gnostics now …”

There is more to the story, however. The publicity associated with St Mary’s and Frs Kennedy and Fitzpatrick has had an impact. People are generally more aware. They know that St Mary’s did not happen by accident; that it was the product of how the archdiocese has been led and managed over the longer term. They saw and heard Fr Kennedy and the Fitzpatricks, father and son, on Australian Story. They watched Q&A. They saw Fr Kennedy walking away to the TLC building. People understood these two priests had ceased being Catholic a long time ago.

A club without boundaries is no club at all; a church without boundaries is no church either. The boundaries of the Catholic Church are well known. The boundaries of the archdiocese of Brisbane can be somewhat more difficult to detect. Infra-red glasses may assist.

Fr Kennedy left some time-fused calling cards behind on his way out of the Catholic Church. One of them concerns the Buddhist question and the Archbishop himself. In an interview with ABC Radio National, Fr Kennedy said:

“John Bathersby himself, as spiritual director in the seminary, some of the Masses he said with them, today he would say that they’re wrong. He introduced Terry (Fr Fitzpatrick) and many people to Buddhism, John Bathersby did.”

A response to this claim has been sought from Archbishop Bathersby. There has been no reply.