I recently read an article in The Guardian about a “rebel parish” in Brisbane that was now facing a grim future due to its members dying off.
Some 15 years ago, the priests and parishioners of St Mary’s South Brisbane decided that they’d be happier outside the Catholic Church.
It seems to have started with a parish priest who believed he was a genuine threat to the church.
This was Fr Peter Kennedy, and also his priestly chum Fr Terry Fitzpatrick.
If you’ve been a Catholic in Australia for a long time, I’m sure you’ve met plenty of Fr Peters and Fr Terrys. I know I have.
They’re always going on about being a threat to the church. Even if you don’t ask, they’ll still tell you how radical and heretical they are.
They rule their parishes with a rod of iron, entirely shaped around their own strong personalities. Every homily is politics; the supernatural rarely gets a look in.
They are protected by an elderly parish mafia who also think of themselves as radical and heretical.
Women can preach, vestments are for other people, you can footle about with the Mass as much as you like, and you can bless all the gay unions in the world.
Anyway, back in 2009 Archbishop Bathersby of Brisbane got sick of the hijinks at St Mary’s, suspended Fr Peter, and removed Fr Terry’s faculties.
The late Archbishop was one of Australia’s most liberal Catholic bishops, so that gives you an idea of how bad it was.
The community went down the road instead to a Trades and Labour Council building, where they became the portentously titled “St Marys in Exile.”
Fr Peter and Fr Terry carried on blithely with invalid baptisms and DIY worship experiences for whoever felt like turning up. They didn’t have vestments, but they did have banners and rainbow flags.
Today this community is slowly dying out. But they’re maintaining their rage.
Fr Terry still insists that they were turfed out because they posed a genuine threat to the mainstream church’s “business model.”
But it’s hard to believe this when barely 50 people now attend Sunday worship at St Marys in Exile.
Fr Peter believes his community will simply fade away over time.
“Why do you want to go to church when you’re in your 70s and 80s?” he asked, perhaps not rhetorically.
Most of the parishioners no longer believe in God, but they do enjoy talking to each other about themselves.
A parishioner said in the Guardian article that, “One of the things about this community is that people have lived very rich and full and challenging lives, and many have experienced great hardship, great grief.
“Whereas in our institutional church, you have a limited richness … you might have a bishop and three priests. You’ve got a very limited perspective coming from very limited lives.”
Sure. After all, no priest or bishop in the institutional church has ever had divorced parents, a broken heart, a drinking problem, Guillain-Barré syndrome, or lost a friend to suicide.
I don’t want to lampoon these people, mainly because you couldn’t make this stuff up.
But I did find myself wondering how many other Catholic parishes in Australia are like this—presided over by an iron-willed boomer priest, upheld by a liberal cabal, and completely self-referential.
I suspect quite a few. But they’ve driven out any opposition, so no one complains about them to the local bishop anymore.
Did you ever watch the 1960s US sit-com Gilligan’s Island? A group of seven people find themselves stranded on a tropical island.
They form an amiable and functional community. But every time they have a chance of being rescued, they always ruin it.
When they are finally rescued 15 years later, the group find that the world has moved on without them. They don’t fit in anymore.
When I read about St Marys in Exile, all I could think of was Gilligan’s Island. There is such a thing as being a victim of your own victimhood.
So what can we offer the good people of this little community? I think the kindest thing is to pray for them and continue to let them have their own way.
They clearly enjoy being in exile, still describing themselves as “unholy” and “renegades.”
It would be wrong to force them back into a relationship with a church they’ve rejected.
And if you’re a priest reading this, look and learn. Please remember Frs Peter and Terry in your Masses.
But don’t follow their example. It doesn’t end well.