Category Archives: Uncategorized

The following letter appears in the latest issue of The Tablet. A copy was provided by Michael Hirst, Foreign News Editor.

The community of St Vincent de Paul Redfern, Sydney welcomes the opportunity to comment on your recent article (18/6/5) on tensions created by the appointment of the Neocatecumenal Way to St Vincents.

In relation to the night in question, the allegation of misbehaviour by the priest, contained in your article remains accepted by the community. The table/organ stool was irreparably damaged. The community wishes it to be known that the calling of the police by … Continue reading →

Speaking the truth in love Eph 4:15 13 June 2006

Rev Peter Maher
NEWTOWN NSW 2042

Dear Peter,

I refer to your letter of 9 June 2006. I did try twice on the Tuesday to ring you and the phone rang out without going to any answering machine.

You say that many Redfern parishioners have written many letters to me about the situation there over the past two years: in fact only one parishioner has done so, Sr Marnie Kennedy. You say that a group of people “have been begging a bishop … Continue reading →

25 June 2005

Father John Ford
Leichhardt N.S.W. 2040
Australia

Bishop Fisher

Thank you for your reply to my letter of 7 June. I regret that it was made public before you received it. I had thought that four days would have been enough time.   I am sorry that I am not able to accede to your request that your reply not be made public. Firstly, because a number of persons have asked if you have replied and I feel under an obligation to the same and secondly, I do not think we have anything to … Continue reading →

Speaking the truth in love Eph 4:15 13 June 2006

Dear Father Ford,

I refer to your letter of 7 June 2006. Though your letter was published far and wide through the email before I received it, I would ask you to keep my response to yourself.

Thank-you for recounting your own extraordinary pastoral history and, more importantly, for the contribution it represents to the life of God’s people for half a century now.

You say in your letter that you were ‘absolutely astounded’ that I wrote to the Parish of St Vincent de Paul, … Continue reading →

ReGAIN – Religious Groups Awareness International Network

Set up to inform and educate the public regarding the true nature of policies and practices of the LEGION OF CHRIST – a seemingly bona fide Catholic Religious Congregation – the REGNUM CHRISTI Movement, their SCHOOLS and all their WORKS.

ReGAIN’s mission is to outreach, unite and support those touched or adversely affected by this group.

Their website (http://www.regainnetwork.org/) is full of familiar stories.

Thanks to Jack C. for the link.

Message just received from the Good Shepherd parish in Kelmscott Western Australia

From: Clive Maher
Sent: Sunday, 26 June 2005 7:40 PM
Subject: KELMSCOTT NEWS

Greetings

Hot Off The Press …….

Our beloved Parish Priest Fr Melvin has just announced that he has been transferred to Helsinki as of the middle of NEXT MONTH.

Persistence Pays!!

God Bless

Clive and the Mosquitoes.

Irish and Aboriginal links

When Ted Kennedy, 74, former parish priest of St Vincent de Paul’s, Redfern, famous for his solidarity with Aboriginal people and for his challenge to Cardinal George Pell’s moral condemnation of homosexuals, died at Concord Hospital in Croydon, NSW, in the early hours of Tuesday 17 May, the news came to us in Fitzroy through two phone calls from Ireland before our Sydney friends had got started on their day. He would have liked that.

Those calls came from Ted Casey of Ring, County Waterford, and Seán O’Connor of Beamore, County … Continue reading →

From: wendy
Sent: Sunday, 26 June 2005 1:38 PM
To: mail@church-mouse.net
Subject: Neocatechists’ hypocrisy

I have for the first time been reading through your web site and am horrified and saddened at the state of affairs in Redfern so soon after Fr. Ted Kennedy’s death.

Fr. Kennedy is (or was) the equivalent of Christ among the Pharisees of the time, whom He accused of hypocrisy and too much involvement with the law rather than the people, and urged his followers to love one another.

Cardinal Pell and the hierarchy of the Church would do well to remember … Continue reading →

St Vincent’s Community Redfern 10 June 2005

Most Revd. Anthony Fisher
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
341 Old South Head Road
Watson’s Bay. NSW 2030

Dear Bishop Fisher,

Thank you for your kind comments about our late pastor Ted Kennedy. As you rightly say he was a person held in great affection and loved by many people. Members of the Redfern congregation and the wider Catholic community will continue to feel his influence and direction. We believe that it was his special love for Aboriginal people that gave rigour and strength to his theology of the poor as … Continue reading →

The rhetoric:

The Reality: Kiko and Screaming in Kelmscott

A 73 year old man alleges he was threatened with excommunication by his Neo Catechumenate Way priest as well as physically threatened by the same priest on two occasions.

Mr Ernie Samuels, of the Good Shepherd Church in Kelmscott, West Australia, has written to Archbishop Barry Hickey alleging abusive behaviour by the assistant priest, Fr Richard Tomelty.

Mr Samuels claims that a meeting the attended for the purpose of discussing the use of the parish hall was diverted into a series of questions about … Continue reading →