Winners and losers from St Mary’s

The fiasco at St Mary’s Catholic Church, South Brisbane, is a disaster for Catholics worldwide.

This is not just an Australian story. The Catholic Church is a global institution and the saga has made the news in many countries. No one can recall a case like it.

The sacked priest at the centre of the conflict, Father Peter Kennedy, returned the keys to the historic St Mary’s church to Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby on Monday, April 20. The day before, after his last mass there, Kennedy led an emotional walk to a union building nearby where his congregation will continue to meet.

In most coverage, the Catholic Church is depicted as harsh and outdated. Kennedy, in contrast, is a decent, humble, quiet servant of the poor.

A French news agency condemns not only the dismissal process - de façon injuste - but the whole Catholic Church. It quotes Kennedy’s claim that it is le plus grand club masculin de la planète - the world’s biggest private men’s club. Die Kirche versinkt immer mehr in Anarchie, wrote a German commentator. The church sinks ever more in anarchy.

How did it come to this? Catholic conservatives have railed against St Mary’s for years. Their complaints include that the church has blessed same sex unions, had women preach and has altered liturgies. Specifically, St Mary’s uses the words Creator, Sustainer and Liberator instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in baptisms.

Finally the complainants went direct to Rome. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled in February that only the traditional names could be used. Then Bathersby was obliged to do what he never wanted to do and dismiss the errant priest.

The four reasons the archbishop has given for removing Kennedy and his flock are using unorthodox liturgies, changing the way mass is celebrated, having once had a Buddhist statue in the church and disrespecting the church’s authority.

Nowhere else in the world would these be grounds for expelling a well-attended church effectively ministering to marginalised groups and troubled individuals. While not formally approved they are not uncommon. In fact the conservatives now rejoicing at Kennedy's banishment claim there are many more liberals out there to be hunted down.

John Bathersby is by all accounts a good bloke. But his handling of this situation has been inept. His failure to visit St Mary's has been a bad look. His absence from mediation meetings was worse. In much of his personal correspondence with Kennedy he sounds inflexible and tetchy. Replies from the priest in contrast seem reasoned and patient. To the dismay of the hierarchy St Mary’s placed all this on the internet.

So who wins and who loses - besides the St Mary’s congregation losing their premises?

The obvious winners at this point are the conservatives - ungraciously labelled by some as the Catholic Taliban - who have wanted Kennedy punished for his sins.

It will be a positive for many that the archbishop has not supported Kennedy’s right-wing critics - publicly at least - on the issues of gay unions and women preaching. The archbishop knows these are ongoing emotional debates. He has neither inflamed nor doused them.

The most obvious losers are the many people with mental illnesses, broken relationships, addictions and other challenges who have been supported by a loving local community within the Catholic Church. They now no longer have both. Many have expressed profound grief in recent weeks.

Also diminished is the Catholic denomination in Queensland which has lost one of its most effective and visible ministries to the disadvantaged. More than 2,200 met at St Mary's for its first week in exile. John Bathersby’s authority has suffered in failing to negotiate a better outcome.

Other losers are those whose experience has taught them that effective pastoral care for the needy requires flexibility in church practice, leadership and in the words used about God.

Many Christian outreach workers never use “Father” because of the highly negative connotations for those who have had an abusive parent or priest. There are better expressions, they claim, of the same truth.

Many have watched St Mary’s connect powerfully with marginalised people - prisoners, Aborigines, addicts and others - and win approval from a generally anti-religious watching world. It will be a great disappointment to these observers if this ministry suffers. It will be equally disappointing if other Catholic congregations which have moved towards a St Mary’s style of modifying unhelpful old practices now come under pressure to move back.

Vatican watchers who had hoped Pope Benedict XVI might be more open and ecumenical than his predecessor have also lost. Optimists anticipated the new regime moving closer towards expressions of theology and church life now shared broadly across the denominational spectrum.

There were hopes that the historic pattern of vilifying, condemning, punishing and excluding may end. For in too many cases the victims have been shown later to have been right. These hopes have been dashed.

Was it all worth it? Couldn’t Peter and John have just sorted it out over a few beers?