Encounter<\/strong> is a radio program that may be heard on Sundays at 7.10am (repeated Wednesday at 7.10pm) on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National network.<\/p>\n This highly acclaimed series, co-ordinated by Florence Spurling, explores the connections between religion and life.<\/p>\n With an emphasis on a high standard of creative production, Encounter invites the listener to make connections intellectually, emotionally and intuitively across a broad spectrum of topics.<\/p>\n The program regularly reflects on the religious experience of multicultural Australia. This includes small, lesser-known groups and gives access to voices and experiences that are not often heard in the mainstream media.<\/p>\n Encounter has won local and international awards.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael Gravener: <\/strong>That place is so symbolic, and has such memories for people, that they mightn\u2019t pray there, they mightn\u2019t worship a Christian God there, but from an Aboriginal point of view \u2013 as we all know \u2013 space and place is very important.<\/p>\n Hilary Bone: <\/strong>It\u2019s a place where many Aboriginal people have been buried \u2013 and the deaths go on and on and on \u2013 it is a sacred place, and it\u2019s being defiled.<\/p>\n Paul Collins: <\/strong>It\u2019s understandable that tension will be there; it\u2019s very very difficult to move into a community that\u2019s very well established, that has a long track record of social justice. But when you move in people who seem to want to impose their own model of the church, and their own way of operating upon the community, then you begin to realise that the tensions there will not only be simmering \u2013 they\u2019ll be exploding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n STREET SOUNDS<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Welcome to Encounter. David Rutledge here, taking you this week to the inner-city suburb of Redfern in Sydney. Redfern is known for its large Aboriginal population, and over the past few months, it\u2019s been making the usual national headlines about a community beset on all sides with the worst kind of chronic social problems: drug abuse, alcoholism, serial unemployment, and trouble with the police \u2013 the kinds of tensions that led to the riot earlier this year in February.<\/p>\n But Redfern is also home to a large Aboriginal Catholic community, and the centre of that community is here: St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Redfern Street. The whole area is bound up in Catholic Church and local Aboriginal history \u2013 right next door to the church is the Aboriginal Medical Centre, which stands on land that was handed over to the Aboriginal community by the Sisters of Mercy some twenty years ago.<\/p>\n The Aboriginal community doesn\u2019t own the church \u2013 at least not under the state freehold system of ownership. But for the past thirty-five years, St Vincent\u2019s has been a refuge and a home to hundreds of Aboriginal people who have lived \u2013 and sometimes died \u2013 within its walls.<\/p>\n Until recently, the church and the community had experienced three decades of service from one extraordinary parish priest: Father Ted Kennedy, who throughout his life has been a passionate advocate for social justice \u2013 and a very sharp thorn in the side of the Catholic Church hierarchy.<\/p>\n Ted Kennedy: <\/strong>Within the Catholic community in Australia there has been a deep, dark hole for a long time now, which amounts to a lack of genuine spirituality. By ‘spiritual’ I do not mean something ethereal, incapable of being translated into the common coinage of human experience. I mean the opposite: something that can live at the very centre of the human dilemma.<\/p>\n Religion can become the possession of an elitist group, whose power reinforces the power of all the other institutional forces in society. Its language then becomes spiritually hollow, incapable of criticising or challenging any of those forces. In so becoming, religion moves inevitably away from where people \u2013 especially the poor \u2013 live, move and have their being.<\/p>\n I want to confess that the Australian Catholic Church has built up a momentum that it heading away from the poor, and to the extent that it has done so, it has become unfaithful to the Gospel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Father Ted Kennedy speaking on ABC Radio\u2019s Saturday Guest<\/em> program in 1984.<\/p>\n Ted Kennedy was priest at St Vincent\u2019s Church for thirty years; he came to Redfern in 1971, inspired by the reformist spirit of the Second Vatican Council. In his ministry to the poor and the marginalised of Redfern \u2013 particularly to the Aboriginal community \u2013 Father Ted extended unconditional support and welcome. The church and the nearby presbytery were a refuge \u2013 and sometimes a home \u2013 for anyone with nowhere else to stay, and it didn\u2019t matter whether they were black or white, Catholic or otherwise.<\/p>\n Ted Kennedy was also an outspoken critic of the institutional Church. In 2000 he published a book entitled Who Is Worthy<\/em>, which is a searing attack on conservatism and clericalism.<\/p>\n Father Ted today is physically in decline \u2013 a series of strokes has left him bedridden and very ill. But the community at St Vincent\u2019s Church is continuing the work that he started.<\/p>\n MUSIC – CONVERSATION – INSIDE THE CHURCH<\/p>\n Every Tuesday and Friday morning, the church puts on a meal for whoever wants to come along. There are three or four dozen people here this morning, inside and outside the church. It\u2019s a real community event. And if you come along, you find that Ted Kennedy \u2013 even though he\u2019s physically absent \u2013 is still very much a part of the community.<\/p>\n Glen Jameson: <\/strong>He\u2019s done a lot for the community, especially when funerals and christenings \u2013 he probably christened half of all the Aboriginal people in Redfern \u2013 marriages, everything.<\/p>\n Bea Haines: <\/strong>He did lots of things like talk to everyone, found out what their circumstances were \u2013 like, if they needed help or anything \u2013 he was really caring and good with everyone.<\/p>\n Glen Jameson: <\/strong>She\u2019s been here all her life; I\u2019ve been coming here going on fifteen years now. I\u2019ve met a lot of people, very good people here that help us out from time to time, and this church means a lot to the Redfern people, I\u2019d say. Not many people have got money to go and get themselves a feed, so this is not just for the people that come to the church, this is for people in the are who are homeless. To lose this church to anything \u2013 be it mother nature or anything else \u2013 it\u2019d really hurt the community, I reckon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>That\u2019s Glen Jameson and Bea Haines. People have come here to Redfern from all over NSW. Tony Haines is Bea\u2019s brother, he\u2019s from Moree; and Freddy Reynolds is originally from Brewarrina.<\/p>\n Tony Haines: <\/strong>I\u2019ve got five children and they\u2019ve just about all been christened by Father Ted. He was an Irish guy, and the Irish people had similar beliefs to us.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>What do you mean, the Irish people had similar beliefs to you?<\/p>\n Tony Haines: <\/strong>Well, you know, they struggled in this country like we did \u2013 you know, with the Eureka Stockade \u2013 they were here in the colonies. That\u2019s part of the reason why I reckon Ted identified with us: he believed that the Aboriginal people are disadvantaged, and he tried to help us. He\u2019s had three strokes \u2013 and he\u2019s still going.<\/p>\n Freddy Reynolds: <\/strong>I was born at Brewarrina, but I was taken away in the stolen generation era. Father Ted\u2019s been a big part of my life \u2013 and not just only mine, other people here. He\u2019s just like a father, you know, a big brother and all that, all put together. I can\u2019t say much more than that \u2013 he\u2019s a gentleman.<\/p>\n Tony Haines: <\/strong>These black people here are from all over Australia, not just from here. And old Ted was able to pick out what groups fitted in where. Like when I came to his 25th anniversary out in the yard there, he had alcohol out there, all different kinds, where he knew that people went in their crowds, and what they drank and what drew them together.<\/p>\n Cindy French: <\/strong>Father Ted, well, he was there when my mother had me, so he\u2019s known my family for years and years, ever since I was a baby. He\u2019s a beautiful man \u2013 like, if we know Father Ted\u2019s coming here, you\u2019d be lucky to fit everyone in this church, it\u2019d be from here down to the lights away, you know? We love him, and I pray for him all the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Cindy French.<\/p>\n Ted Kennedy\u2019s ministry has extended far beyond the walls of St Vincent\u2019s Church. The congregation has a large number of members who live outside Redfern \u2013 indeed outside Sydney \u2013 and this is an appropriate complement to Father Ted\u2019s decentralised approach to priestly office. Rhonda Ansiewicz and Hilary Bone live in Byron Bay on the north coast of NSW. Their association with Ted Kennedy and the Redfern community goes back thirty five years, and once a month they still come down to St Vincent\u2019s. Here\u2019s Rhonda.<\/p>\n Rhonda Ansiewicz: <\/strong>The guidance Ted gave was in that he would defer us \u2013 and himself \u2013 to the Aboriginal people. If you wanted to work out something, or something was amiss, he\u2019d say ‘ask Mum Shirl,’ or ‘go and ask Aunty Gladdie.’ And it kind of threw us all into this chaotic, unknown space, where you had to work through it yourself, you know, Ted wasn\u2019t there to help. Like he\u2019d offer you the space, and you could take it, but he wasn\u2019t there holding your hand. And then relationships developed out of that.<\/p>\n It drew you into that vortex of suffering, of celebration, of struggle, of social justice. And that, for me, encapsulates a lot about Redfern.<\/p>\n Hilary Bone: <\/strong>There was this total absence of hierarchy. So when you walked into the church \u2013 Ted\u2019s church, as it was and always will be, I guess \u2013 you felt at home. And I think the irony now is that we have this hierarchical church imposing power from the top down to the bottom. And with Ted\u2019s church, it was empowerment, rather than being subject to the imposition of power.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>That\u2019s a very interesting point you make there. Because a lot of the time, when people talk about Ted, they\u2019ll describe him as a leader, a charismatic figure, and you kind of get this image of a high priestly figure, leading his congregation \u2013 through the wilderness, or wherever. You\u2019re saying it wasn\u2019t like that, that hierarchy wasn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n Hilary Bone: <\/strong>No, that was the irony of the whole thing: that there was this leadership, but the leadership wasn\u2019t structured, it was there because of the respect that people held for Ted. So that it was only in his absence that we began to see him as a leader, in that he was an inspirational figure. So that perhaps ‘inspirational’ is a better word than ‘leader’.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Hilary Bone.<\/p>\n It could be said that one of the most remarkable things about Ted Kennedy has been that he managed to perform his remarkable ministry within the hierarchical structure of the church. Joe Castley is another long-standing member of the community.<\/p>\n Joe Castley: <\/strong>The great thing about Ted was that he knew when not to fight, when just to go his own way. And he had the status, and he had the brain, and he had the authority to be able to do that. So he existed as a sort of parallel church in Sydney for years and years and years.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>How was Ted able to plough his own furrow in that way? I imagine he would have faced resistance or direct opposition from the hierarchy, in simply performing the kind of ministry that he wanted to perform.<\/p>\n Joe Castley: <\/strong>Not only from the hierarchy, but from his fellow priests. He told me once \u2013 fairly recently \u2013 what awful loneliness it had been, that he felt cut off in his pursuit of the mission to the marginalised and to the poor, to the free spirit within the Church. He felt terribly alone, and it was appallingly difficult.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n CONVERSATION -INSIDE THE CHURCH<\/p>\n Kel: <\/strong>My name\u2019s Kel. This may not be like the Sacred Heart Mission down in Melbourne \u2013 but it\u2019s still a good feed; everyone\u2019s welcome, come as you are. They do a wonderful job here in Redfern. You might think Redfern\u2019s a bit of a poor area, but people in Redfern survive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>If you come along to the Tuesday and Friday meal at St Vincent\u2019s Church, you\u2019ll find great community spirit \u2013 but also, at the moment, a lot of anger. In July last year, a new priest took over at the church: Father Gerry Prindiville, and a few months later he was joined by his assistant, Father Dennis Sudla.<\/p>\n Father Gerry and Father Dennis are followers of the Neocatechumenal Way, a highly conservative formation within the Catholic Church. We\u2019ll hear more about the Neocatechumenate later in the program, but suffice it to say that St Vincent\u2019s is now experiencing a style of priesthood that\u2019s very different from the Father Ted Kennedy model.<\/p>\n The new priests have taken a stand on the issue of respect for the church and its proper use. Appropriate decoration has become a contentious issue. There\u2019s been carpet put down in places over the bare floorboards, and there have been wrangles over what should go up on the walls. Behind the altar here, there\u2019s a photo of Shirley Smith or Mum Shirl, who died in 1998, and she\u2019s revered among the Aboriginal and the white congregation as a genuine saint (if not an officially canonised one). Among other things, Mum Shirl was instrumental in setting up the Aboriginal Medical Centre next door. The new priests feel that the photo of Mum Shirl is inappropriate, and the community has had a fight on its hands to keep it up on the wall.<\/p>\n On the adjoining wall here, the priests have put up an image of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour \u2013 a more traditional Catholic icon. And the two images rather neatly represent the tension that\u2019s developed at the church since Father Ted retired; whether they also represent hope for some kind of mutual accommodation in the future remains to be seen.<\/p>\n Father Gerry Prindiville is also opposed to the community holding its twice-weekly sharing of the meal inside the church. This has angered the parishioners who organise the meal \u2013 one of them being Mary McMahon.<\/p>\n Mary McMahon: <\/strong>I know that the current priests don\u2019t want us to be here, doing what we\u2019re doing today…<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>…which is the sharing of the meal?<\/p>\n Mary McMahon: <\/strong>…sharing of the meal, which we do two days a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays in the mornings. And we must have close to a hundred people each time \u2013 and you can see people sit around and talk, it\u2019s not just taking a sandwich and going, or anything like that; it is a real sharing of the community spirit. And that is Ted\u2019s legacy, really \u2013 and they are very keen for us not to be here, because they think that it\u2019s not seemly.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Have they made that plain?<\/p>\n Mary McMahon: <\/strong>They have actually said \u2013 well, one of them, Father Gerry Prindiville, has said that he doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s appropriate that we are in the church. Whereas we think that the living and wounded Christ is here, in ourselves and in the people, and that there should be no more appropriate place than Christ\u2019s house for us to be.<\/p>\n Mario Bezzine: <\/strong>There\u2019s all these volunteers; they have family, they come in their spare time; these people just work for the poor, not for the church.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>That\u2019s Mario Bezzine, who lives just up the road from Redfern in nearby Waterloo.<\/p>\n Mario Bezzine: <\/strong>Usually the churches, they\u2019re all very rich, you know? I\u2019m from Malta, you see, like they make the churches rich, you see gold and that. Say, like, somebody is sick, and you say ‘if my daughter gets well, I\u2019ll give you my gold ring’ \u2013 that\u2019s how they work sometimes.<\/p>\n But here, they want to leave it like that, because it represents the poor. They don\u2019t want the church to look nice, they just want more help for these people. Because there\u2019s a lot of people who are hungry \u2013 I mean, this was their own invention, these people who help here. I\u2019m just a poor person who helps a bit by washing and that, but I think it\u2019s disgusting when there\u2019s so much money in the Church.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t have a key \u2013 the people who work for the poor, they don\u2019t even have a key for the church. You have to go and tell the priest to open and close the church for us \u2013 when we\u2019re finished we have to go and tell them. I think that\u2019s disgusting, when there\u2019s people who have been here thirty years helping here, doing the same job. What do you think? I think that it\u2019s very hypocritical. The Church is supposed to help the poor; these people are putting their money where their mouth is, but the hierarchy, they\u2019re just sitting on their fat butts \u2013 excuse me \u2013 and doing nothing, like usual.<\/p>\n Mary McMahon: <\/strong>The carpet, which none of us likes, is here; we\u2019ve always had bare boards. They\u2019ve also put a dais there, which we also find inappropriate, as we don\u2019t believe the priest should stand up above the rest of us. Some of the members of the community have removed a couple of those daises, and they\u2019ve always been replaced. I think that one might be actually nailed down so that people can\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n I suppose we\u2019re seen as iconoclastic in a way, that we don\u2019t want the clericalism, which Ted was never in favour of. We don\u2019t want that sort of clericalism, I think it\u2019s the cold hand of Rome, really.<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>It\u2019s interesting you mention the bare boards. And I guess these bare boards are part of the vision, right? These boards are theologically significant in themselves?<\/p>\n Mary McMahon: <\/strong>Absolutely. Many Aboriginal people have died in this church, and their bodies have been on these boards. And they died in many different ways, but often in the loving arms of people who tried to support them in their last few hours or minutes. And to try and cover it up with trashy carpet \u2013 or any sort of carpet, even expensive carpet \u2013 is just missing the whole vision of what the Church should be doing with all the people, you know? So yes, the bare boards are really significant \u2013 and we would like them to stay, and not be covered up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Mary McMahon \u2013 and since that interview was recorded, the Sydney Archdiocese\u2019s Charitable Works Fund has told the St Vincent\u2019s community that it will be withdrawing its funding for the twice-weekly sharing of the meal<\/a> at the church.<\/p>\n MUSIC<\/p>\n Parishioners at St Vincent\u2019s Redfern are angry about what they see as the clericalism that\u2019s becoming a feature of life at the church. But the problems have gone further than arguments over church decoration. Relations between the priests and the Aboriginal parishioners have deteriorated, and this became particularly apparent during the riot in February this year. Rhonda Ansiewicz.<\/p>\n Rhonda Ansiewicz: <\/strong>The day after that young boy was killed, which precipitated the riots, Marnie Kennedy stood up after Mass and said to Father Gerry: ‘what are you going to do to support the Aboriginal community, who are in a terrible state of crisis?’<\/p>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>This is Ted Kennedy\u2019s sister?<\/p>\n Rhonda Ansiewicz: <\/strong>Yes. And his response was ‘it is a police matter, and that is where it will have to be dealt with’. There was no \u2013 where Ted would have been down at the Block; he would have been there to hold people, he would have stood with the Aboriginal people, to try and help them through that terrible trauma. There was none of that from Gerry; it\u2019s as if it\u2019s a bit frightening to go out onto that area.<\/p>\n Cindy French: <\/strong>Yeah, things have changed, people have changed, the church has changed \u2013 not itself, but the people that come in here. You know, this is our land, this church helped all of us out, and it\u2019s helped everyone that comes here, seen practically nearly all of us born and reared up. It\u2019s just when the new priests come, everyone\u2019s going their own way, you know? And you can ask 99% of the Aboriginal people here \u2013 and white people \u2013 believe he should be kicked out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Rutledge: <\/strong>Cindy French.<\/p>\n It\u2019s becoming apparent that both the congregation and the priests at St Vincent\u2019s are showing the strain. The community has a website called Church Mouse<\/a>, where you can read about various distressing incidents that have allegedly occurred during the Sunday Mass \u2013 incidents that demonstrate a high degree of stress on both sides. Hilary Bone.<\/p>\nNew priests have been installed in the parish, and neither the priests, the congregation nor the local Aboriginal community are happy.<\/h3>\n