IT sounds like something out of a thriller novel, not the doings of a suburban Catholic parish in Brisbane. There are letters to the Pope setting off a train of events that could lead to excommunication, parishioners who tell those who have worshipped alongside them that they will fry in hell for their actions, and talk of spies, Opus Dei, and storming the church to break the locks if the Vatican changes them.
All of this has resulted from a letter from Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby to St Mary's parish priest Peter Kennedy.
Bathersby's letter says that St Mary's is "out of communion" with the Roman Catholic Church, the grounds being the liturgical practices, or form of service.
The letter lists several areas where St Mary's needs to conform.
It then says "in reality, St Mary's South Brisbane has taken a Roman Catholic parish and established its own brand of religion. Ultimately it does good ... but its own style of worship and sacramental practices can hardly be described as Roman Catholic." The letter says it is "now up to St Mary's itself to make whatever decisions about its future existence".
The unspoken threat is to remove the parish from the Catholic church. But both the advocates and opponents of St Mary's think there is a bigger battle here that goes well past the liturgy, or form of service, and is one for the soul of the Catholic church.
Put simply, it is the extent of control from Rome. St Mary's advocates say they are creating the sort of involved parish with close community links the broader church says it wants, but opponents say those attending St Mary's are denied a full Catholic experience.
St Mary's is the first to admit it is not a conventional church. The church gives communion to not only divorced people but also openly gay couples and individuals. The congregation regularly joins in the service. Outside of the church itself, St Mary's is active in social justice movements such as helping the homeless, of whom there are rather a lot close by. St Mary's has a healthy congregation of about 700, but what sets it apart from many other churches is that it is comparatively young, with an average age of about 40.
At a public meeting of St Mary's congregation about how to respond to Bathersby, speaker after speaker said they identified with being Catholic and wanted to stay in the church. But their opponents say that they are not Catholics, and St Mary's is not a Catholic church.
Tensions are high. Neither Kennedy nor the man who wrote the letter to the Vatican about St Mary's, Richard Stokes, would go on the record for this article. But Stokes, for the record, denied the rumour among some of the congregation that he was a member of Opus Dei.
At St Mary's, the congregation talks of "spies", people who come in to services there and then complain about it. The paranoia is at least partially justified. A visitor to the church at last Sunday morning's mass filmed a baptism, which was placed on YouTube, as evidence that the church was not following correct practices.
St Mary's advocates admit the form of their service is a unique one, which has evolved over years in response to the local community. Church spokeswoman Karyn Walsh said that this was in the spirit of Vatican II, where the church consciously adopted a policy of reaching out to the community and having a "bottom-up" approach, where the broad outline of a service was adapted by a congregation to their own circumstances.
"This is fundamentalist Catholics wanting to control the rest of the church," she said. "Our liturgy clearly reflects the modern world. We live in a world where people marry and divorce, some people are gay, and there's a whole range of relationships. The Government recognises this. How come the church can't?"
On the other side, Kathleen Gordon said that at a meeting of St Mary's congregation this week, "I wanted to get up and say, 'I weep for you all'."
"I don't see how they are possibly in communion with the Catholic church. They have no respect at all for Catholic institutions and no respect for the archbishop, or Rome. If they were prepared to compromise, then we can make judgments. But there doesn't seem to be any sign at all of that," she said.
St Mary's has set up a working party to work their way through the demands of the church, but all say there is a limit to how far they will go in their compromises.
Bathersby, who will eventually decide the fate of St Mary's, is currently out of the country and could not be interviewed. No doubt he's praying for guidance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: TA)