Pass the popcorn

Currency Lad has a wry post noting the UFO cult support of soon-to-be-departed St Mary's parish priest Peter Kennedy.

Kennedy's latest rhetoric indicates he truly comes from the ACTU school of diplomacy:

"I intend to have our liturgy at 9am as normal on Sunday morning and there'll be a thousand people there, I'd say.

The people are not going to receive Father Howell. He's naive enough to think he can walk in there on Sunday and the people will welcome him.

Well, they won't. I know the people, I've been there 28 years - the people want me there and I've helped build that community into what it is today.

And then this guy comes in, like a religious scab."

How classy. It would appear that his parish has always been close to the trade unions, and indeed the Trades and Labor Council has offered nearby premises from which to conduct services. (That last linked story indicates that, as of January, Kennedy did not seem overly troubled by the fact that "our community" would seem simply re-locate down the road. Why the change of heart, then?) Peter Kennedy also appears to be getting free advice from union lawyers, as he has apparently mentioned potential "unfair dismissal" action in the industrial courts. What next - legal action about the procedural unfairness in the election of the next Pope?

Speaking of oddball support for the church, I have previously noted the support pledged by perpetual aboriginal activist Sam Watson, following the parish joining the "Sacred Treaty Circle" last November. Problem is, no one seems to know what the "treaty" means.

According to Watson:

...we’ve more or less declared St Mary’s to be a very sacred site to Aboriginal people from right around this area, and we will now defend that.

According to activist Bejam Denis Walker:

Well the treaty is a recognition of our sovereignty under God in country. Something that the Australian government hasn’t realised or recognised, and it fulfils law. Without it, I maintain, people are behaving unlawfully. Essentially it creates a oneness between the Indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous peoples.

Clear? Um, not exactly. At the St Mary's parish blog, there's a link to a new, long open letter to the parish from a West End aboriginal figure Sean a.k.a. John Tracey, complaining that Peter Kennedy had been quoted as saying that the Aboriginal sovereignty asserted in the treaty was a matter of symbolism. Not so, claims Sean:

It seems that perhaps Peter may not have fully understood the treaty he has signed if he considers Aboriginal sovereignty to be legally uncertain and symbolic.

To describe assertions of sovereignty as symbolic directly undermines those assertions.

Bejam has served on the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane a proclamation of Sovereignty and a Notice of Want of Jurisdiction. In international law, Common law, commercial law and Aboriginal customary law these are legitimate and legal statements that can underpin a range of very real court actions relevant to St. Mary’s and beyond. They are not a symbolic ambit claim but a real instrument of law.

Hmm. The (very lengthy) proclamation mentioned above can be read here. The respondents are the Archbishop of Brisbane and Queen Elisabeth II of Australia, basically telling them to both shove off. As for the Church in particular:

...the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed the State and Federal governments and all establishments that uphold and sustain the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, are operating in our Indigenous lands, illegally, and have no jurisdiction to make any decisions regarding the use of our lands/law/culture.

Yet the same letter complains about the lack of apparent support for the treaty process at St Mary's:

In the last month I have attended two meetings at St. Mary’s, called by Bejam to begin the process of assisting “the agenda”. In both cases the meeting was cancelled because nobody from St. Mary’s turned up.

If St. Mary’s remains so busy fighting the Catholic hierarchy or doing business as usual that it does not have the time or headspace to properly deal with the treaty and customary law then it cannot make any claim to being a part of the treaty or customary law process with any integrity, even if they do appropriate the symbols of these things into their own liturgical self identity and their fight with the Catholic hierarchy.

Well well. As I had suspected, aboriginal activists would claim this "treaty" gave them some say as to the future of the parish, or at the very least, the right to occupy the car park in perpetuity. (There has been talk of a tent embassy being established: "a fantastic idea" according to Peter Kennedy.) Yet the parishioners seem to have been too distracted to keep all activists on side.

In another odd aspect of all of this, the new priest being parachuted in from the Cathedral, Father Ken Howell, is quoted today as follows:

Father Howell told The Courier-Mail his propulsion into the spotlight by being appointed to take over St Mary's was "a little daunting".

He looked forward to working with Fr Kennedy and the church community so St Mary's outreach work could continue and to plan liturgies.

He could see no reason why the gay and lesbian choir could not continue to use the church, he said.

Now that's not exactly going to keep conservatives happy. But what will the choir members do? As I expect that many of them may have had their relationships "blessed" by Peter Kennedy, one suspects that most of them will follow him to his new Union home.

This weekend will be a circus at St Mary's, especially on Sunday morning when it appears it will be a case of duelling priests to see which of them is going to conduct Mass, while Sam Watson pitches a tent in the car park, the Raelians spot invisible flying saucers above the Church, and (possibly) fights break out between some of the lesbians. The drama may also be heightened by another fainting spell from Father Kennedy.

Although it is fundamentally a serious issue, I can't help but be entertained as well.