Category Archives: Fr Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy at ANTaR ‘Sea of Hands’ celebration,
Redfern Park, October 2002. Photo by G. Smith

Fr Ted Kennedy sided with the Redfern Aborigines around Mum Shirl and became a close collaborator in her work. His genius was to privilege the excluded in such a way that they became friends. His deep and profound love of the Aborigines in Redfern and all their relatives around Australia was expressed in his extraordinary memory of names and places and where those names belonged. He could identify where each family was based geographically and knew members of visiting Aborigines’ families. This practical knowledge was matched with a keen theological insight and edge that came straight from a political reading of the gospel that left fellow travellers enthralled with its freshness and cultural critique. Ted had an eye for the angle that gave hope to the underdog and a passion to those who stood in solidarity with the underdog. Redfern parishioners – that strange, diverse and sometimes tortured group of all kinds, all colours and even various beliefs – somehow created a community that would have made Jesus proud.
from The Challenge of Redfern by Peter Maher

In search of a sacred space

By | | Reflections
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Where does one find God: within or without? Where does one find a gathering of the “people of God”? I found such a gathering (my idea of what “church” is) at St Vincent‘s Church in Redfern, Sydney. Catholic, it is, in terms of its representation: people of varying social class and background, some Aboriginal, Anglo-Celtic and other ethnic background, one or two who have some form of mental illness, and very young children occasionally running around, oblivious of the liturgy.

 

My Dear Ted

By | | Reflections
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When I think back to the first time I met you in Kettering I was a bit scared of you being a Priest. My experience in my late teens was not very positive regarding the Church. But your love, insight and encouragement changed all of that. You helped me find and believe in my own spirituality. When we came to Australia in 1979 you took us into your home in Burrawang and were able to truly share your life and friends without the slightest trace of ownership.

Book Review – Labour History

By | | Worthy
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Book Review – Labour History – 1/05/2002

Ted Kennedy, Who is Worthy? The role of conscience in restoring hope to the church.
Pluto Press, Sydney, 2000. pp. 151. $27.95, paper.

One of the many stories in this small book tells of an exchange between the author and the Sydney Archdiocesan secretary in 1968. Kennedy had failed to insist that the Protestant partner in a forthcoming mixed marriage promise to raise any children from the marriage as Catholic. This was less an act of defiance than a response to the fact that the bridegroom … Continue reading →

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

By | | Homilies
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On that most eventful day, 11th of September, the Dalai Lama issued a call to reflect on.

"There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first comes from love, the second from fear. If we come from fear we may panic and do things – as individuals and as nations – that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.

We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment. Let us seek not … Continue reading →

Sydney priest tours rainbow church

By | | Worthy
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St Mary’s Church in South Brisbane is well known for pushing the boundaries of convention in theology and politics. On Tuesday, 22 August, the church filled with the curious, the converted and the faithful to celebrate the Brisbane launch of Ted Kennedy’s book, Who is Worthy?

Ted sat among many Murri friends. The Watson family, singer Dermot Dorgan and the Brisbane Lesbian and Gay Pride Choir combined for an evening of storytelling song and celebration.

Tony Robertson, a self-styled holy irritant and host for the launch invited Ted to cut a cake baked for the occasion. The rousing chorus of … Continue reading →

Ted Kennedy weighs up Irish Christian heritage

By | | Worthy
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On 21 July, at the Melbourne launch of his book about radical Christianity and the views of Archbishop George Pell, Who is Worthy?, Ted Kennedy, parish priest of Redfern in Sydney’s inner city, gave the following address. From Tain Volume 8, September 2000.

I remember as a boy making a trip to Melbourne to visit my aunts, getting off the Cotham Road tram at Studley Park Road, Kew. At its lower end I would see what seemed even then an anachronism – an old cabman with his horse drawn Hansom Cab waiting for a fare to the Kew Asylum. … Continue reading →

Sydney priest challenges Archbishop George Pell

By | | Worthy
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What is modern? what is traditional?

Editor’s comments from Tain Volume 5, June 2000

A wise person will be both modern and traditional, as Terry Eagleton pointed out. While reevaluating the tradition, one can also insist on assessing the latest developments in the light of ancient wisdom. Those who have a strong knowledge of their traditions are equipped to analyse and assess the various developments of the modern world. We are not rootless, we have some points of reference.

Three contributions in this issue point towards some of those anchors, the article on the Tain, that on the Book … Continue reading →

Outlook Book Reviews

By | | Worthy
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WHO IS WORTHY?

Ted Kennedy (Preface by Prof Tony Coady), Sydney: Pluto Press, 2000, pb, 152pp, ISBN: 1864030879, $24.95.

Those like me who have admired Fr Ted Kennedy for years have keenly awaited this book. The fruit of many years in his double role as Parish Priest working amongst Aborigines in Redfern and as support and guide to educated laity gravitating to his Masses there, it draws together ideas that have informed his thinking and marked his preaching for a long time.