Fading rebels

For no particular reason this afternoon, I thought about the "rebel" liberal Catholic church regime at St Mary's in South Brisbane that led to a couple of priests being chucked out of the church, and the supporting parishioners and former priests heading off down the road to conduct very, very socially aware services in the Trades and Labor Council building.   I wrote about them a few times around the time of the crisis, and hadn't looked up for some time whether they still existed, and indeed, if former priest Peter Kennedy was still alive.   

To my surprise, it turns out that Philippa Martyr, who I used to like disturbing when she joined in threads in the old era Catallaxy blog, wrote about them a year ago  in her weekly column in The Catholic Weekly (evidently, a very conservative Catholic publication, seeing it hosts Philippa.)    She was inspired to write about them because the Guardian had a (rather sympathetic) piece about them.

 Turns out Peter Kennedy is about 88 now, and retired.  The other priest, Terry Fitzpatrick, is 67 or so, and still active in the community, but the whole theme of the Guardian article was that their alternative spiritual community (or whatever you might call it) has clearly not attracted new membership, and the average age of those attending now is apparently above 60.   Certainly, it is hard to see from photos in the article, or when viewing their online liturgies, any participant without grey hair and wrinkles.

Of course, all churches have ageing attendees, but with St Mary's rebels, it's gone exactly as I expected - a rebellion that fizzled out, as making belief in God optional in a group devoted to vaguely following the liturgies of a Church that, at a minimum, did believe there was a real God, kind of doesn't make a lot of sense.