In examining the malaise affecting the Catholic archdiocese of Brisbane, Lepanto has naturally directed the attention of readers towards the more open, more public and better documented examples of Neo-Gnosticism in the archdiocese:

• St Mary’s of South Brisbane, now “St Mary’s in Exile”, operating in the TLC building;
• the Goddess-worshipping Womenspace; and
• the rustic companion organisation Earthlink at Four Winds, a retreat centre operated by the Sisters of Mercy.

In turn, Frs Kennedy and Fitzpatrick of St Mary’s have directed our attention towards the alleged Buddhist enthusiasms of Archbishop John Bathersby; Womenspace has introduced us to what a behind-the-scenes communication refers to as “Wicca friendly priests and bishops”. For his part, it seems the archbishop prefers not to respond.

There are some who suggest that “St Mary’s in Exile”, having left the official Church, is now passé like yesterday’s fish and chips: old news. Any such suggestion does not withstand scrutiny. “St Mary’s in Exile” remains plugged into the Church on any number of levels, not the least of which is the broad sympathy for Frs Kennedy and Fitzpatrick to be found around the archdiocese and beyond, as the example of the Jesuit publication Eureka Street, covered elsewhere in this issue, attests.

The key public issue involved in the departure of St Mary’s into exile was whether or not Fr Kennedy would sign up to Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This, Fr Kennedy would not do. Another issue, just as central but less remarked on, has been: if not Jesus Christ as Son of God, then what is the prevailing spiritual paradigm at “St Mary’s in Exile”? This has been the unmentionable question right through the ongoing saga of St Mary’s; that is, what is the world view or ‘cosmology’ on offer at St Mary’s?

Fr Terry Fitzpatrick

Our examination begins with the Banyo educated Fr Terry Fitzpatrick whose interest in the divine feminine and in nature appears to be if anything more overt since the formal breach with the archdiocese. In his homily on Easter Sunday, 04.04.2010, Fr Fitzpatrick refers to the mythical “God-Men” and “saviour” types in and around Jesus’ time, “In Egypt, he was known as Osiris, in Greece he becomes Dionysius, in Asia Minor, he is known as Attis. In Sumeria, and am very pleased to announce, she is known as Inanna. Great to have a woman in there…” (Fr Fitzpatrick does not mention that Inanna, the ancient Sumerian Mother Goddess, was identified with ritual prostitution, human sacrifice and mother-son incest.) In the Easter video on the “St Mary’s in Exile” website, Fr Fitzpatrick’s homily was followed immediately by a short prayer around a cross decorated with cloths and the seemingly inevitable pentagram stars and butterflies - butterflies being one of the more recognisable symbols of the divine feminine.

In his homily (video and transcript per the “St Mary’s in Exile” website) of July 3, Fr Fitzpatrick says, “The realm of God is very near to you, for in God we live and move and have our being. Indigenous peoples were very aware of this. God was everywhere. The sacred infused all of life; this is reflected in this Native American Navajo chant. ‘The mountains, I become part of it… The herbs, the fir tree, I become part of it. The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters, I become part of it. The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen… I become part of it.’ Our collective sense of being a part of nature, our world, our environment was lost somewhere in our move to go indoors, building bigger and more elaborate buildings – filling them with more and more things – Symbolically, removing ourselves from nature, from Mother Earth, from the source of our life. The rhythm of life, the movements of nature, the cycles of the moon, the rise and fall of the tides, the gathering of clouds, the direction of the wind, become insignificant, unimportant, along with so much which connected us to our fragile planet.”

In his NAIDOC homily of July 11/12 2009, Fr Fitzpatrick declared: “Stories passed from generation to generation, speaking of the spirit of the land, the spirit of country. The cinematography and the sound-(s)capes were superb. Truly magical. The land spoke to them, it held their dreaming, their very spirits. As I watched I longed for that same connection to land, to country…”

Fr Peter Kennedy

As Lepanto indicated in February 2009, it seemed that “Fr Kennedy has come out into the open with clear and explicit New Age, neo-gnostic statements on the public record only subsequent to his realisation that the game was over.

In his letter of 22 August 2008, the Archbishop had asked a direct question: “At St Mary’s is Jesus Christ accepted as Lord and Saviour, Son of God, or is Jesus regarded as just another Holy person like Buddha or Mohammed?...”

Fr Kennedy’s answer came in his letter of 30 November and it appears evasive: ‘You asked about our position on the Trinity and other dogma. As we have already said, we cannot state the exact beliefs of every community member, moreover we believe this is a question that is not asked of other parishes. We can say, however, that prayers within our liturgies reflect a Triune God and our prayers are enthusiastically expressed by the community. Like other churchgoing Catholics, many believe without question in the Triune God whereas others struggle with the concept, and some may even reject it. We do not ask people to sign a pledge or nominate to which ‘team’ they belong.’”

There are further clues to Fr Kennedy’s concept of the divine. For example, in his ABC radio interview with Richard Fidler, Fr Kennedy said, “There is a philosopher, Quentin de Quincey, and he talks about consciousness going right down into the deepest, right down into the merest atoms, like there is a consciousness that the world is sacred, nature is sacred and the human species as part of that, is sacred. So who I truly am is, is, like it really is quite radical really, it’s that consciousness, that awareness, that spirituality, that, you know it’s the God thing, call it spirit, call it soul.”

As Lepanto previously pointed out in February 2009, Fr Kennedy’s kind of radical “oneness”, as expressed above, appears to represent a world view or cosmology in which we are all “God”, the Christian God no longer being seen as separate from and above the universe. This, of course, is both an effective denial of the core Christian understanding of the Trinity and Jesus Christ as well as a classic statement of New Age perspective, more than a little reminiscent in fact of the views of the dismissed American Dominican Fr Matthew Fox and his New Age, Goddess-friendly, effectively pagan “creation spirituality”.

Fr Kennedy has favourably mentioned a range of spiritual paths at different times, including Gnosticism, Advaita Hinduism and the Kabbalah, among others. While Fr Kennedy has, to Lepanto’s knowledge, stopped short of publicly invoking “the Goddess” as such, he has endorsed the traditions above where the divine feminine - singular, plural, however conceived - is very much part of the spiritual landscape.

The view of Aboriginality at “St Mary’s in Exile” also offers a similar outlook. At the “Peter Kennedy: The Man Who Threatened Rome” Brisbane book launch, Fr Kennedy spoke about the Aboriginal understanding of the land and in particular referenced Martin Flanagan’s “introduction” (in fact, foreword) to Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s book “From Little Things, Big Things Grow”. Fr Kennedy indicated he had used it as a reading, the point being, as Kennedy maintained and as Flanagan had written, that the land was to traditional Aborigines “source and mother”.

Communion with the earth

A significant factor which has sometimes been overlooked appears in the St Mary’s Mass Newsletters where “all” recite, “It is the table of sharing with the poor of the world, with whom Jesus identified himself. It is the table of communion with the earth in whom Christ became incarnate.” The key words here are “communion with the earth in whom”. Note that earth is personified - “in whom” - and the communion is “with the earth”.

Conclusion

Fr Peter Kennedy’s concept of the divine appears essentially the same as the slightly more “out there” Fr Terry Fitzpatrick and that of ex-Dominican Matthew Fox - the divine as land, source and mother, of whom we are all a part. Such a perspective fits within what are often referred to as Mother Earth or Goddess religions - “earth-based” spiritualities if you like, whose inspiration comes more from Jung, Wicca and eastern religions than from the Australian Aboriginal tradition.

The divine as “land, source and mother” locates Fr Kennedy, Fr Fitzpatrick and many of their followers on pretty much the same page as Womenspace, Earthlink and other groups within the Church. The other groups include those who provided the resources to make Womenspace and Earthlink possible such as the local Mercy and Presentation orders, or at least influential groups within those orders.

Naturally, little if any of this will be particularly new to Brisbane’s Archbishop John Bathersby, who has often proclaimed in an unqualified way the need for a “radically inclusive” church and who for so long played the role of protector of St Mary’s, Womenspace and Earthlink.

Lepanto renews its previous offer to Fr Peter Kennedy: Should he have an interest in further clarifying his position or in responding, Lepanto is prepared to print anything he may have to say.