Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter
18 May 2025
St Vincent’s Redfern
Readings: Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 144; Apocalypse 21:1-5; John 13:31-35
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This weekend we mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Fr Ted Kennedy, longtime parish priest of Redfern. At his funeral, Ted was described as ‘a pebble in the comfortable boot of the establishment, a man who spilt his guts for others’.
Ted’s life was driven by that commandment of Jesus in today’s gospel: ‘Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.’ Ted knew this was a tough and gritty commandment. Like Paul and Barnabas in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Ted affirmed: ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.’ And he did undergo more than his fair share of hardships, as did the many hundreds of Aboriginal people he buried over the years of his public ministry together with Mum Shirl. Whenever he entered into correspondence with archdiocesan authorities (which he did often), he, like Paul and Barnabas arriving at Antioch ‘reported on what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles’. Ted’s proclamation of the Good News from Redfern in the days when the homeless had nowhere to lay their heads other than here on this church property is summed up by today’s reading from Revelation:
‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.’
Ted never knew the papacy of Francis. But Ted had walked the path of Francis’s papacy back in the days when the hierarchy were suspicious of anyone who proclaimed that the Church should be a poor church for the poor, a field hospital staffed by shepherds with the smell of the sheep. By the time he came to write Who is Worthy? The Role of Conscience in Restoring Hope to the Church, Ted was ‘concerned for two groups, each marginalised, each oppressed – gay people and the Aboriginal community’. In his sights was Geoge Pell and his understanding of conscience. And may they both rest in peace. Suffice to say that Ted would have felt vindicated when he read the words of Francis:
‘We …find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.’[1]
He’d have been delighted at this papal utterance in Amoris Laetitia, Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the Family:
‘It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being. … It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations. At the same time, it must be said that, precisely for that reason, what is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule. That would not only lead to an intolerable casuistry, but would endanger the very values which must be preserved with special care. For this reason, a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, “sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families”. …By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth, and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God. Let us remember that “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order, but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties”. The practical pastoral care of ministers and of communities must not fail to embrace this reality.’[2]
These words of Francis could have been written by Ted.
Ted would have savoured the belated papal approval of his all-inclusive practice of the sacraments here at the Tom Bass altar in the church of St Vincent: ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy. I would also point out that the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’[3]
It’s very fitting that this Church is emblazoned with the words of John Paul II at Alice Springs:
‘For thousands of years, you, the Aboriginal people have lived in this land with a culture that endures to this day, with an endurance that your ancient ceremonies have taught you. You are like a tree in a bushfire, leaves scorched, bark burned, but inside, sap still flows and roots are strong.
‘Always the Spirit of God has been with you. Your Dreaming is your own way of touching the mystery of God’s spirit in you and in creation, with its animals, birds, fishes, water holes, rivers and hills.
‘You have still the power to be born. The time for rebirth is now.’
Ted would have been well pleased with Francis’s declaration in Laudato Si’: ‘It is essential to show special care for Indigenous communities and their cultural traditions. They are not merely one minority among others’.[4] He would have been relieved that the church hierarchy at its highest level stated:
‘Indigenous peoples… are not opposed to progress, yet theirs is a different notion of progress, often more humanistic than the modern culture of developed peoples. Theirs is not a culture meant to benefit the powerful, those driven to create for themselves a kind of earthly paradise. Intolerance and lack of respect for indigenous popular cultures is a form of violence grounded in a cold and judgmental way of viewing them. No authentic, profound and enduring change is possible unless it starts from the different cultures, particularly those of the poor.’[5]
Many of you will recall the address Ted delivered here on the 25th anniversary of the commencement of his ministry at Redfern. He pointed to ‘four groups whom the clerical world jealously excludes from its liturgy, its ministry and its administrative structure’.[6] They were the poor, women in the Church, homosexual men and women, and those he described as ‘the clerical and religious dropouts’. Knowing that Rome moves slowly, I think he would have been well pleased at, or at least accepting of, the inclusive piecemeal moves that Francis made in relation to three of those groups. But I suspect he would have joined with Mary McAleese in relation to Pope Francis’s attempts to open up church governance and ordination of women. McAleese writes with the same condemnatory tone as was sometimes adopted by Ted. McAleese says of Francis: ‘When it came to putting pen to paper to change church discipline and teaching, he took the timid path; sadly, he has left a flip-flop, perplexing legacy.’ ‘The task of dealing with the problem of women having second-class membership in the Church awaits the next pope.’[7]
In the words of Chris Geraghty’s funeral prayers, remembering Ted 20 years on, we pray that the Father might ‘soften hearts, strengthen backs, and let blood flow again in veins so that your oppressed poor may inherit the earth and have a share in its wealth’. May Ted and Francis enjoy eternal rest in each other’s company. We give thanks for Francis, and for Ted who forecast for us down under so much of the Francis agenda for our Church. We pray that the ‘spirit of imagination and adventure’ will enliven us to make ‘the paradigm shift to centre our theology on a wholesome environment for the whole of humanity’.[8]
Fr Frank Brennan SJ is serving as part of a Jesuit team of priests working within a new configuration of the Toowong, St Lucia and Indooroopilly parishes in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Frank Brennan SJ is Adjunct Professor of the Thomas More Law School at ACU and is a former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). Fr Frank’s latest book is An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge, Garratt Publishing, 2023 and his new book is ‘Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum’ (Connor Court, 2024).
[1] Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, #37.
[2] Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, #304-5.
[3] Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, footnote 351.
[4] Laudato Si’, #146
[5] Fratelli Tutti, #220.
[6] Ted Kennedy, Who is Worthy? The Role of Conscience in Restoring Hope to the Church, Pluto Press, 2000, p.141.
[7] Mary McAleese, ‘A curate’s egg’, The Tablet, 26 April 2025, p. 16.
[8] Ted Kennedy, Who is Worthy?, p. 144.
