The Religion Report Transcript

Ted Kennedy: But gradually the Aboriginal people who are undoubtedly the most dispossessed in Sydney, found it became their home, and I think I see now that this place, the old Presbytery is much more the home of the Aboriginal people than it is mine. I like to think of myself more as their loving friend, their guest.

Michael Gravener: What happened, we had priests who came in and virtually want to whitewash the history of Ted and the history of the people and the history of the community that still exists there. And the consequences of that was, you have a – it’s a bit like Captain Cook coming back into this country and just walking into an environment which the Aboriginal people of Redfern find very sacred.

Jerry Prindiville : Well first of all, very, very few come to church. I mean you’d probably get about five or six Aboriginals that have ever come to church there, even before I came there were very few Aboriginals coming to this church, even though it has a reputation of being a church for the Aboriginals, they are not churchgoers in this parish.

Jeremy Hartcher: So how would you like the church and the things that you do, how would you like to run that if the other people weren’t so influential?

Jerry Prindiville : Well like a normal parish, where the priest is there, with the co-operation of the parishioners, working together to preach the Gospel, to catechise the children, to administer the sacraments. And just be able to work together. The priest can’t do everything by himself and the people can’t do anything without the priest. So together we have to work together.

Jeremy Hartcher: Father Dennis Sudla is the other Neo-Catechumenate priest at St Vincent’s, and he also describes Redfern as a normal parish.

Dennis Sudla: Our task and mission here is nothing but normal, it’s normal as in what would you do in a normal parish.

Jeremy Hartcher: What’s Brother Michael Gravener think of the idea that Redfern is a normal parish?

Michael Gravener: I don’t really understand what they mean by normal. If normal means allowing people into a church to fulfil their sacramental duties and then walk out and continue life as is, well that we could say was the normal parish environment. But the situation at Redfern is much different. It is an area which is focused for Aboriginal people as very important to them in the status of Aboriginal people in Australia. It’s a place where a lot of things have grown from this environment. Father Ted was very much a support towards the Aboriginal Medical Centre, you had people like Naomi Mayes, who’s the head of the Aboriginal Medical Centre, the Blair family, who are very instigating in the Aboriginal Housing Company, all that came from a lot of talk and a lot of advocacy from the church environment here. So it’s really important space. So it’s not a normal parish in that sense, but it’s very much part of the Catholic church and part of the tradition, and we very much follow the Catholic church and honour our faith and our baptismal rights.

Marnie Kennedy : The sort of god that is projected by them is severe, there’s a lot of emphasis on sin and guilt and shame. Well that’s no help.

Jeremy Hartcher : Have there been any specific incidences of confrontation with the Aboriginal community and the Neo-Catechumens?

Marnie Kennedy : Oh yes. We have had hundreds and hundreds of funerals through the years. Ted has buried hundreds of Aboriginal people. He has never questioned whether they’re Catholic or not, so a few weeks ago, one of the elders died, Aunty Betty. So her daughters came and asked if she could be buried there, because her son had been buried, I remember her son was shot dead, he was buried from Redfern, and we supported them through their tragedy. So she wanted to be buried in that same church. But they had to go round to the priest’s place to ask for permission to use the church.

Jeremy Hartcher : This is Jerry?

Michael Gravener: Jerry. And so he didn’t express any condolence, he said to them, ‘Are you Catholic? Is your mother a Catholic? If not, how could she be buried in the church.’ And so that sort of thing goes round the Aboriginal community like fire. They have an enormous underground communication, so they pass on to each other that this is not the place to come.