Fr Ted Kennedy’s strongest message was “his understanding of the primacy of the poor in Jesus’ teachings”, says his sister, Sr Marnie Kennedy.

Fr Ted, parish priest of St Vincent’s, Redfern, for more than 30 years and dear friend of the country’s indigenous people, has died after a long illness. He was 74.

Tributes and letters have poured in to honour a champion of the poor and marginalised and defender of the indigenous people; a man who read and thought deeply and lived what he preached.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said that Fr Ted was a “good and courageous priest who inspired many people”.

“He was a man of strong convictions who worked hard to help those on the margins,” he said. “He will be sadly missed by his friends and former parishioners.”

Sr Marnie, a Sister of the Sacred Heart and a member of the Redfern parish community since the 70s, says her brother was a passionate advocate for justice and had a great gift for preaching.

“He offered a Christ who was so attractive and yet so strong,” she said.

“He offered a wonderful theology of the primacy of the poor, which was for everyone, not just a few. He believed that was the essence of the Gospel.”

Fr Edmund Campion told The Catholic Weekly that Fr Ted “is one of the glories of the Sydney priesthood whose name will shine in our story for many years to come”.

“He was someone who took the Gospel seriously and lived it thoroughly,” he said.

Fr Ted wrote in a letter to the Archbishop of Sydney in 1975 (Cardinal James Freeman) explaining his vision for his community at Redfern.

“Poverty of spirit is the prerequisite of all Christian life,” he wrote. “And there is no poverty of spirit without a sharing of the spirit of poor people.

“It involves feeling and touching the pulse of their lives, and sharing the weight of their anguish and putting our shoulder alongside theirs, and fighting with them for their rights.”

Ted Kennedy was raised in Sydney. He went to Christian Brothers High School at Lewisham before entering the Manly seminary. He was for some years a chaplain at Sydney University.

Sr Marnie says he was inspired by the reforms of Vatican II.

“He had a vision of a team ministry fanning out into areas like factories and other places, in an attempt to offer a yeast for a new society,” she says.

Cardinal Freeman offered him Redfern parish in which to establish his team ministry, and he moved into the presbytery in 1971 with two other priests, Frs John Butcher and Fergus Breslan.

So began Fr Ted’s friendship with the many indigenous people who lived in, or passed through, his parish.

“The first night or so he opened the doors of the presbytery and he took in about 100 to sleep there,” says Sr Marnie. “Ted slept in the back of the sacristy on a mattress for many years.”

Then came Shirley Smith (‘Mum Shirl’), who teamed up with Fr Ted to tend to the community, to visit jails and help conduct hundreds of funerals.

They were instrumental in the establishment of the Aboriginal Medical Service, Aboriginal Hostels and the Aboriginal Legal Service.

The term ‘stolen generation’ has been in currency for about 10 years. Fr Ted learnt of it much earlier when, in the 1970s, indigenous people with their newly acquired citizenship left the missions and came to Sydney to find their families.

He helped them. “He travelled the country trying to find connections,” says Sr Marnie. “He could say to people ‘I’ve met your uncle, I’ve met your cousin’ in some place in the far west.”

Fr Ted became renowned as an advocate for and friend of indigenous people, as well as a critic of those he saw as keeping their distance from the poor.

“He sometimes fired off a lot of Irish passion about justice, but he did not have a big ego,” says Sr Marnie.

Fr Ted’s vision of reconciliation was not a political, or even a religious one, but was simply a vision of friendship. And he led by example.

He was always wary of encouraging a sense of paternalism but, rather, strived to encourage self-determination, says Sr Marnie.

Some of the young people he befriended and encouraged to study went on to become leaders in society, including Australia’s only indigenous judge, the late Bob Bellear.

“Their love for him was just extraordinary,” says Sr Marnie. “They were given the sense that he had them as their first priority.”

Redfern parishioner Peter Griffin says that Fr Ted was a “most extraordinary” man.

“He was terribly orthodox, with liturgies for example, but very unconventional, too,” he said. “He had a penetrating intelligence. He was a very strong man and a tremendous friend in times of need.”

Fr Ted was suffering the effects of a stroke in 2000 when his book Who is Worthy? was published.

In 2001 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the Aboriginal community.

Fr Ted retired as parish priest in 2002.

He celebrated his golden jubilee as a priest in 2003.

From time to time the Church Mouse receives fan mail, offering finely honed theological arguments in support of the Way.

More than 1,000 mourners have turned out to farewell a former Sydney priest renowned for his social justice work for the Aboriginal community in Redfern since the 1970s.

Father Ted Kennedy presided over Saint Vincent's Parish for more than 20 years, retiring in 2002 due to ill health.

His funeral combined Catholic ritual with a traditional Indigenous smoking ceremony and Catholic hymns with didgeridoo music.

Richard Green, who gave the Indigenous welcome at the funeral, said Father Kennedy was much loved for his open style of preaching.

"He got down with everybody, he spoke to everyone, he ministered to everybody he met," he said.

"He didn't judge, you know, it's so important to have someone like that in your community.

"He's a blessing and his passing's a pretty tragic thing. We're going to miss him and the community's going to miss him but he's left a legacy."

Source: ABC Message Stick 24/5/05 http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1375856.htm

As Father Ted Kennedy was laid to rest today in a service in the Block, Redfern, in the presence of many Australian dignitaries, some were asking whether Fr Ted might become Saint Edward of Redfern.

Saint Ted Kennedy of Redfern, people's priest, prophet and poet, today (24 May) was loudly and spontaneously proclaimed as a saint by thousands of people gathered in Sydney beneath a vast blue and white marquee hoisted on a patch of ground restored to Aboriginal people by Gough Whitlam.

They don't need the Vatican to tell them he's a saint.

Their proclamation, with cheers, applause and whistles, of Father Ted as a saint, with another Edward, former archbishop Cardinal Clancy as their witness and the greatest concentration of priests for a funeral Mass in recent memory, rolled out across the indigenous dancing ground, through the sacred gumleaf smoke towards the broken houses of poor people whose hearts he had touched to the core.

It was, as principal concelebrant Bishop David Cremin put it, one of the greatest expressions of faith and love he had ever witnessed in his long ecclesiastical career.

Seventy priests in white robes representing the Resurrection were so numerous they could not find a place to sit down. "The last time we had so many people here in white with crosses it was the Ku Klux Klan," joked Aboriginal community leader Sol Bellear.

From early morning people began arriving in Redfern. Former Governor-General Sir William Deane, former Chief Justice Sir Gerard Brennan. And Aussie legend Tom Uren in his famous gardening hat. They sat in the body of the people. This was no time for standing on station or reputation - this egalitarian spirit continued through the Requiem Mass, culminating in a mutual declaration, a spontaneous roar that Father Edward Kennedy is regarded as a saint by his people, now and forever.

They had come, as Danny Gilbert said, to honour a 'splendid and holy man'.

Speaker after speaker came forward to give details of how Ted Kennedy had changed their lives. Some played the guitar, clicked the clap sticks or sang their hearts out.

This was the priest who said, "The Jesus I know is no cold, hard Iron-Christ; nor does Jesus deserve to be reduced to smug, glib and uncompassionate irrelevances when the real meaning of His love is what people need so desperately."

Proclamation of a saint by the people themselves has a long tradition in the Catholic Church.

Here at the funeral Mass we were seeing people in wheelchairs, old, young, fit or sick, black or white, not asking that Ted be 'made' a saint, but declaring their personal witness to his sainthood. Nor did I see any glimmer of demur from the rows of clergy, some of whom must have smarted at times from Ted's straight-from-the-shoulder forthrightness.

A newspaper reporter asked me why Cardinal George Pell was not present. I said that perhaps he felt this was a time for 'people power', one not to be distracted by an eminential presence. If so, he would have been right. It was Saint Ted's day. Plenty of time for ecclesial ruminations over the acclamation of Saint Edward of Redfern by the people who loved him.

This day was for celebration of a great life. In the words of the great man himself, "Life is made up of warm flesh-and-blood human beings, not rules made in an age long gone, or ill-fitting principles that were never made-to-measure anyhow."

And it was these warm people who came that day to love, remember and honor their hero, 'Saint' Edward of Redfern b. 27 January 1931, d. 17 May 2005.

His miracles have already occurred.

ABORIGINAL activist and Catholic priest Ted Kennedy has been farewelled by about 700 mourners at a funeral service in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.

Fr Ted, who spent more than 30 years supporting Redfern's Aboriginal community, died at Concord Hospital on May 17 aged 74.

Long-time friend Chris Geraghty told the gathering at The Block that Fr Ted had lived to serve the people he loved.

"Our Fr Ted comes before you with a life poured out for all with empty pockets and dirty hands," he said.

"He was a living treasure, compassionate, a pebble in the comfortable boot of establishment, a man who spilled his guts for others.

"He learnt to love what moved to rhythms other than his own."

Fr Ted entered the seminary at 18 and was ordained in 1953. He moved to the Redfern church in 1971 and established a network of priests to support the local Aboriginal community.

Former governor-general Sir William Deane, Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway and heritage campaigner Jack Mundy attended the service, along with about 40 priests.

An Aboriginal mass was held at St Vincent's Catholic Church in Redfern before the main funeral service.

Fr Ted Kennedy, former parish priest of St Vincent’s Catholic Church in Redfern who died last week, will be remembered as one of the most fearless advocates for Aboriginal rights in Australian church history. This week we remember Fr Ted.

David Rutledge: Tomorrow, 26th May, marks the beginning of National Reconciliation Week, and so it’s entirely appropriate that yesterday was the funeral of former Redfern Catholic parish priest, Father Ted Kennedy.

A troublesome priest for some, Father Ted lived a life of poverty and devoted himself to working alongside indigenous Australians. He preached reconciliation against exclusion and marginalisation of all kinds, whether because of race, income or sexual orientation.

Ted Kennedy was also a scathing critic of perceived privilege and insularity among the Catholic priesthood – but still some sixty clergy turned out to send him off yesterday.

Father Ted’s funeral was quite an event: a procession through the main street, and then on to the Block at Redfern, which brought together a thousand people to recall his part in their lives, and to pray for his soul. His passing was honoured by Australians, indigenous and otherwise, from around the country.

But Ted Kennedy’s influence wasn’t confined to the parish of Redfern. His uncompromising support for indigenous Australians has inspired many others. Just two of them are Chris Geraghty, now a judge of the District Court of New South Wales, and Tom Stephens, the Western Australia State Member for Central Kimberley-Pilbara. Both of them in earlier life spent time in theological studies at the Sydney seminaries of Springwood and Manly, but first met Ted through their families.

Chris Geraghty and Tom Stephens spoke yesterday with producer Noel Debien, who began by asking Chris Geraghty about Father Ted’s unconditional policy of welcome.

Chris Geraghty: I mean honestly, a hundred people any one night living in his presbytery at Redfern, and they weren’t all well-behaved. And Ted’s great pride, I think, at the end of his life, was that he was there for thirty years, and he never called the police once, and yet stirred – particularly people with money, or with education or with power, whether it’s political or ecclesiastical – stirred, he could be as hard as nails, and as tough as Ezekiel.

Noel Debien: For those who’ve not been there, what was Redfern parish under Ted Kennedy?

Chris Geraghty: It was a ministry that Ted conducted for the underprivileged, the deprived, the poor, the drunks, the druggies, the people that loved him and whom he loved, and it was a ministry that he conducted not just on his own, but with Mum Shirl and with a number of young clergy for a while. He was a great leader of young clergy. The collections were small, and he used to take them outside after mass and distribute them among the Aboriginals. It was a drop-in for any Aboriginal from anywhere in Australia, I mean they just thought it was home, and it was for them. So it was an unconventional parish where they didn’t have incense and Gregorian chant.

Noel Debien: Well Tom, his influence wasn’t limited to Redfern alone; how did you come into contact with Ted Kennedy?

Tom Stephens: Young seminarians like myself were being exposed to Ted’s work, Ted’s ministry, the work of Redfern, and introduced to the life of Mum Shirl and the Aboriginal people; introduced to Aboriginal Australia through that Redfern experience. And for me, Aboriginal people suddenly moved from absolutely peripheral to the view of what it was to be an Australian, to core and central, and stayed that way. I stayed that way for the rest of my life.

Ted was able to introduce us to a theology of the poor, that put right at the centre of the gospel, the call of looking after the anawim Yahweh, responding to the challenge being with “the poor of the Lord”, and that was a new insight that had not been available from the seminaries of Springwood and Manly. Even for those who chose not to go on to Redfern, I think it became a counterpoint to whatever else you did at the seminary. There were those that were being exposed to Ted Kennedy, the wide ministry that he was part of, and those that were learning about it by juxtaposition with the rest of us. It was an extraordinary point in the lives of so many people, and I’m lucky enough to have been significantly impacted by that. I parted ways from the seminary, I was not going to be able to continue my studies for the priesthood – in part, I suppose, because of my linkage to Ted.

Noel Debien: Ted actually had quite a direct influence on your career, and where you are now in Western Australia. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Tom Stephens: Yes, it was while I was suddenly no longer heading towards the priesthood, because of the decisions that had been taken by the church authorities at the time – the church hierarchy at the time said things to me like ‘you know Dick Buckwell’ – another priest of the day; he was the priest that took me down to Redfern from Springwood – ‘you know Terry Fox, and you know Ted Kennedy, you know all of them. You couldn’t possibly be suited for the diocese of Wollongong’.

Ted’s linkages to Patrick Dodson, to Peter Willis, a Palatine priest working in the Kimberley, saw me suddenly leaving Sydney and going up into the Kimberley to work, employed by the Aboriginal community on the edge of Kunnanurra, a town in the far north of Western Australia, and that led me straight into politics, and I ended up there working almost immediately with the struggles of Aboriginal people for their right to vote – an Aboriginal bloke running for parliament, Ernie Bridge, who went on to become the first Minister in an Australian government in this country – and as well in the land struggles, the land rights pursuits, the issues of protecting sites.

Nukambar was on the horizon as I arrived, and the Kimberley Land Council became something that linked me to a political struggle that soon saw me go from that work with the Aboriginal people, outside parliamentary politics, straight into the parliament in double-quick time – but directly as a result of the introduction that Ted Kennedy had been to the call of the gospel, immersion in Redfern, that experience of Ted Kennedy and the experience of the church where he put at centre point, a call of the poor of the Lord.

Noel Debien: Where does somebody like Ted Kennedy fit in the Australian church?

Chris Geraghty: I think he sits at the very centre of it. I think that he’s a prophet, I think that he’s got a firm grasp on Christian understanding of God. He was not a dogmatic person, and he didn’t live his life by dogmatic formula, but he was the kind of person who would take a formula out of its envelope, read it, and re-interpret it and try to conduct a discourse with the world about this particular insight that Christianity provides.

Noel Debien: But he was “orthodox” in the best sense of that word too, wasn’t he, as a Catholic priest?

Chris Geraghty: He was faithful. He was enriched by the church’s traditions. He was not confined in any way by the church, because if one reads the conditions and history of the church, you’ll know that it’s up and down, and round about and a huge amount of development and redevelopment and change and refinement, and he was aware of all that. And I must say the people who persecuted him and criticised him, were people, in my estimation, who are completely unaware of the traditions of the church that go back beyond the first Vatican Council in 1870.

Noel Debien: He was a man, though, who fought strongly on primacy of conscience; this is one of the abiding themes of his work. How for you, as a politician, does the message of primacy of conscience and being a Catholic, sit together in your public work, Tom?

Tom Stephens: Well for me, Ted introduced me to the solid basis upon which you could confidently go into an appreciation of yourself, and your response to the call of the gospel. And the reason he was able to introduce us to that so solidly is because of the confidence that he had from his own appreciation of the history of the church. I’m sure Cardinal Newman had impacted dramatically on Ted’s understanding of himself, and the church and the people of the church. And for us, and for me, it gave us a lot of confidence, as you moved into a church where that primacy was being questioned by others, and led to pretty solid dialogue at the time when I was a seminarian.

For me as I went into politics, it left me always with the confidence of knowing what was central to me. I knew why I was in politics – I knew, from my exposure to Aboriginal people and their needs, that that had led me into politics – and I was confident always, about what I was doing over the twenty-two years, twenty-three years that I’ve been doing it; that sense that colleagues might have a view of the way you should do things, but their view was not as important as your own response to the call of the gospel. That’s something that I have to say ‘thank you Ted’, for the confidence that he exuded in his own life and was able to see reflected perhaps not as strongly in the lives of others, but nonetheless it flickers in the lives of people like myself.

I found it of more use in the call of the social gospel rather than the bioethical debates, but I also found it important to me in the bioethical responses that have kept me seeing the context of looking after the needs of the weak and the vulnerable. I was in the West Australian parliament when we were able to abolish the death penalty in the early 80s. That was something that made me respond to that call at the time, vigorously, because of my experience with the prisons of Western Australia and to have known through my Redfern experience, people who had been charged and convicted of murder, and yet to know in Western Australia that they still were subject to the death penalty. And they’re things that were created in my consciousness, my appreciation of the role of conscience through that Redfern experience, in a very vibrant way.

Noel Debien: We’ve seen a swing to the right politically across the world, we’ve seen a swing to the right even within church governments. Is there a sense, though, in which Ted is of a period in the church – the 60s, the 70s, the 80s – is he something that’s passed?

Tom Stephens: I think to the contrary. I think what we’ve got here is a church, an extraordinary tree, upon which dead branches emerge from time to time, and the church leadership takes you down a dead-end from time to time – but the core message, the central message of the more solid branches, the trunk of that tree, Ted Kennedy represents. Ted Kennedy’s message was really much more rooted in the solid traditions of the church than some of the distractions that aspects of the hierarchy may be expressing today with some pomp and volume, but not with the authentic ring of the gospel that Ted was able to beat out.

Chris Geraghty: I’d like to say, in addition to that, that Ted was fearless. And I think that the hierarchy who are drawing back, I think destroying the message of the Second Vatican Council, are really fearful people. And I think the Roman church, and I think other churches too, are quite fearful now about the influences of the world, and they’re drawing back and refusing to dialogue with the world. Ted would never have anything to do with that, he wanted to talk to the world and wanted the world to talk back to him.

Noel Debien: What is his legacy? How is it going to continue?

Chris Geraghty: What legacy can anybody leave, in the end? I mean, we’re just human beings, aren’t we? We live and die, we go into the earth and most of us are forgotten very quickly. I don’t think Ted will be forgotten readily. It’s going to continue in the love and respect that he’s given to the Aboriginal people, that was outpoured at his funeral. It’ll continue in the strength that people have to confront people that they disagree with, and who they understand are not preaching the gospel. It’ll continue in Redfern, it’ll continue in the clergy.

Noel Debien: Is this about ideas, is that what it’s about?

Tom Stephens: It’s in part about ideas, but also very significantly about a way of living. And Ted had a way of living that was a real selflessness that he modelled, and through that modelling had others inspired to try and replicate it in their various ways of living. And at the funeral today, from all parts of the Australian compass, we had people from Melbourne and Victoria and large numbers from South Australia and from Queensland; there were people from Far North Queensland – in my case I saw in the congregation, a number of people from Western Australia – rippling out around this country, trying in their own lives to take up some of the ideas, but also take up a way of being with other people in this country to see the primacy of the Aboriginal people in this country, to accept the Aboriginal community as being central to what it is to be Australian, to recognise their first call upon us, and then from that to be inclusive of others, particularly those in need, particularly those that have been alienated. That was Ted’s – not just his idea, not just his theology, but it became central to his being.

David Rutledge: Tom Stephens, the Western Australian State Member for Central Kimberley-Pilbara, and you also heard NSW District Court judge Chris Geraghty, talking there with Noel Debien.

Source: The Religion Report, Radio National, ABC Radio http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1376649.htm

There was no need to canonise Ted Kennedy, Sol Bellear said at the old priest's funeral service, the Aboriginal people had already acclaimed him a saint.

Others among the congregation of more than 1500, such as Tom Hammerton, who had lived with the priest and his Aboriginal parishioners in the Redfern presbytery, saw Ted as a mate.

Danny Gilbert, the lawyer, quoted Patrick Pearse, a leader of the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland: "Splendid and holy causes are served by splendid and holy men." Father Kennedy's life cause, the liberation of the human spirit, was splendid and holy. So was his heroic faith, "untrammelled by dogma" and his authority, bestowed not from clerical office but from what he had to say.

Love flowed through the tributes at Redfern yesterday. And grief. And politics.

"We have lost a fierce friend to encourage us, a powerful God botherer, an untidy, grimy prophet, a Jesus figure in our midst," said theologian and District Court judge Chris Geraghty, leading the prayers of the faithful.

Catholic prayers of the faithful can rarely have been like these. Sydney has never seen a funeral quite like this. Father Kennedy, who served at St Vincent's, Redfern, for more than 30 years, died last week, aged 74.

Some community members had wanted a requiem Mass at St Mary's Cathedral. After all, the eye surgeon and atheist Fred Hollows had been buried from there with a eulogy from Frank Hardy, an old communist.

But Ted Kennedy had long fallen out with church leaders. His book, Who is Worthy?, was a response to a position taken by Cardinal George Pell. Anyhow, Ted's sister Marnie said, her brother had wanted to be buried from Redfern, among the people he loved. So the service began with a Aboriginal smoking ceremony at little, time-worn St Vincent's, where Father John Ford spoke of Ted as "another great Australian saint".

The Aboriginal people wanted to carry the simple casket, topped with gum leaves and kangaroo paws, to The Block for the main service under a huge tent but funeral directors urged that they use a hearse.

Someone said that so many suits had never been seen before in Redfern. The great and the good were joined by the tired and the troubled, who Father Kennedy had seen as good anyhow.

Sirs Gerard Brennan and William Deane, former High Court judges and governor-general, tried to sit up the back but were ushered forward.

Aboriginal elder Max Eulo encouraged smoke from gum leaves. Old sculptor Tom Bass sat near old politician Tom Uren. Gabi Hollows, Jack Mundey, Bob Gould, Bill Crews, Martin Sharpe, Senator Aden Ridgeway, rugby coach Dick Laffan and Keysar Trad, representing the Australian mufti, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, reflected the ecumenical nature of the gathering.

Cardinal Pell, on duty elsewhere, had said that Father Kennedy "was a good and courageous priest who inspired many people" and "a man of strong convictions who worked hard to help those on the margins".

Organisers ran out of seats for the nearly 70 priests who concelebrated the mass. Bishop David Cremin said people of many faiths and little faith had found Jesus in Ted.

Father Pat Kenna said the room in which he had died had a small crucifix on one wall and a wooden cross in red, black and ochre, the Aboriginal colours, on another.

Judge Geraghty led the prayers for this "pebble in the comfortable boot of establishment, a man who spilt his guts for others". Ted had reminded "those of us with earthly or heavenly power of their ridiculous weaknesses, their cruel blindness and petty pomp". He had shown "the true worth of corporate salaries and the stupidity of the BRW rich list. Our Father Ted comes before you with a life poured out for all, with empty pockets and dirty hands".

Redfern was Ted's territory, Judge Geraghty prayed - "the focus of pain, of anger, echoing with the cries of suffering, a place of protest, of empty needles, of crushed cardboard wine casks".

The people prayed for "another true shepherd", another "courageous leader to renew the face of the earth".

Ted Kennedy left for Waverley cemetery at 2pm, 5½ hours after the the first service had begun.

The presence of his absence was everywhere.

About 50 people gathered at St Mary's Church South Brisbane last night to grieve the death of Ted Kennedy and to celebrate his life and ministry.

As well as spoken tributes and recollections we had the music of Dermot Dorgan who has written songs from his days with Ted in Redfern. We used some of the texts from the Funeral Service including the Gospel: Luke 6:17-23 and the music of Peter Kearney. I composed the opening prayer of the service using some of Ted's own words from his book, "Who Is Worthy?"

Opening Prayer

God of Ancient Days, We grieve the loss of our brother Ted whom you have called from this life We celebrate his passion for justice.

We honour his unfashionable love for the poor of our land.

We delight in his impatience with the disease of clericalism in the Church, We share his shame of the wrenching distress and grieving, starvation and dying of Aboriginal people.

We remember his certainty of the holiness of the heart’s affection and the truth of the imagination.

We celebrate his love of the Word, made flesh in Jesus.

May our brother Ted who shared in the Eucharist with your people of the streets, come to the banquet of life Christ has prepared for us.

We make our prayer in communion with Jesus our brother and the “Holy Ghost who over this bent world broods with warm breast and ah! Bright wings.”

Amen

Prayers of the Faithful

Loving God, hear the petitions of your people united in grief and inspired by the faithful witness of our brother Ted.

We pray for those who mourn Ted’s passing: his sister Marnie his extended family of Margie, John, Virginia, John, Carolyn, Mark, Megan and Peter, and their children Elizabeth, Sarah, Jonathan, Seamus, Brendan, Martha (in heaven), Greta, Declan, Marcus, Nicholas, Olivia and Sian; Gwen Kennedy and family. May they be comforted in their sorrow. With confidence and hope we turn to God in Prayer: Creator God Hear our Prayer We pray for the people of Redfern who have lost an advocate and friend. May we continue Ted’s ministry of humble communion with the Indigenous peoples of our streets city and nation. With confidence and hope we turn to God in Prayer: Creator God Hear our Prayer We pray for our Church, for those who exercise authority, for those who who stand with the lonely and the unsatisfied, for those who are nerve wracked and enslaved by convention. May we go among them as a great wave of cool water. May we bear a contempt of oppressors. May we speak out against unconscious oppression, speak out against the tyranny of the unimaginative. May we speak out against bonds. With confidence and hope we turn to God in Prayer: Creator God Hear our Prayer We pray for reconcilation and healing in this week when we remember the Stolen Generation and celebrate Mabo Day. May we come to know that our liberation is bound up with the liberation of the Indigenous peoples of this land. With confidence and hope we turn to God in Prayer: Creator God Hear our Prayer We pray for our world. As we experience the depths of winter, half of the planet is living in the heat of summer. May we remember with wonder the balancing of the earth’s resources and our interconnection with each other. With confidence and hope we turn to God in Prayer: Creator God Hear our Prayer

The Blessing

We are sent in the name of God, the Sustainer of the people of the Exodus in the name of Jesus, our reminder of Real food and Drink from Heaven; in the name of the Holy Spirit, Giver of our sustenance today; To extend Jesus' task of giving what we have To destroy the difference between rich and poor Amen

Possibly the most honest and forthright, if not bluntly enraged, voice of progressive Catholicism in Australia passed into silence on May 17 with the death of Ted Kennedy, long the priest of St Vincent’s church in the Sydney inner-city suburb of Redfern.

Kennedy came to St Vincent’s in 1971 committed to a radical vision of Christianity that was centred on the struggles of the poor. When he arrived with a small band of other progressive priests, the outgoing priest left a comfortable rectory complete with leather furniture and shagpile carpets. Kennedy sold the expensive furnishings and installed beds for the homeless, who came in their hundreds.

Rapacious landlords were driving Redfern Aborigines from their homes at the time and Kennedy identified with the Aborigines' struggle. His example inspired others: South Sydney Uniting Church donated property to the Black Theatre and the Sisters of Mercy gave property in which the Aboriginal Medical Service was established.

Progressive Catholics from all over Sydney travelled to Redfern weekly to hear Kennedy’s sermons. His sermons, peppered with poetry, were of the highest theological level and often angry if dealing with racism or the Redfern Police. One of his sermons was published in an early edition of Green Left Weekly.

However, the Catholic hierarchy hated what Kennedy was doing.

In later years, Kennedy was forced into retirement by a series of strokes and right-winger George Pell, now a cardinal and heading Sydney diocese, got his revenge — he installed members of the peculiar Catholic secret society Neocatechumenate Way in the parish. The “Neo-Cat” priests, as they are known, after saying the mass each week literally flee so as to avoid contact with Aboriginal people who may be on the street outside.

St Vincent’s now has two conflicting congregations within it. Progressive parishioners maintain the Church Mouse website, to uphold the legacy of Kennedy's mission.

Thank you for the many times at Mass at St Vincent's Redfern when your honesty and courage touched me deeply. You gave me a hunger for authenticity in our Church. Your spirit continues to disturb me from my comfort.

TED

When the telephone alongside my bed at Quirindi Presbytery woke me out of a fitful sleep at 6:30 last Tuesday morning, I sensed, even before she spoke, that it might be Marnie, with the news that Ted had died.

To you, so loving an elder sister, Marnie; to those many nieces and nephews of "a wonderful uncle"; and to the aboriginal people of Redfern and elsewhere, I express a word of heartfelt sympathy.

These days, whenever I enter St. Mary's Cathedral from the south doors, and gaze along the main aisle, I seem to hear still the sound of the didjeridoo and violin that led us in procession for Mum Shirl's Requiem. That was early in May 1998: seven years ago. Who could forget the bucketing rain afterwards in College Street?

In a similar way, it may be that, from now on, whenever we listen to the Beatitudes from St. Luke's Gospel the experience of today's Requiem here under the Marquee, on the Block, at Redfern, will be revived.

For All Saints day, for weddings, funerals, retreats, confirmation: the passage known as "The Beatitudes" must be the most proclaimed liturgically of any Gospel. In the Beatitudes we are plunged into the disturbing presence of the One who, aligning Himself with those outside the Law, would be hounded to death on a cross. Our hearing these Beatitudes at Ted's Requiem is to commune with him and his Lord. And as we take and eat the Broken Bread of the Eucharist we are again in communion with the same Lord, crucified and risen, and with Ted, now ill eternity.

Only a matter of weeks before he arrived at St. Columba's, Springwood in February 1947, Ted had celebrated his 16th birthday. At the tender age of 15, he'd completed High School at Lewisham Christian Brothers', gaining the Leaving Certificate, a necessary passport into first year Philosophy at the College. Even in that first year at Springwood I noticed how sensitively this new boy, Ted Kennedy, listened. He listened with interest, remembering details, years later.

That beautifully worded death notice in the Herald speaks of him as "an unconditional fellow traveller with the many whose lives he touched".

Only a week before this I'd read similar wording in the final pages of Tony Hendra's memoir, "Father Joe - The Priest Who Saved My Soul". The Father Joe he writes about was a Benedictine Monk of Quarr Abbey, on the isle of Wight.

Let me share a couple of paragraphs ...

I read these astounding words: "He touched the lives of so many people, in England and abroad, in his own Church and not ... it is hard to give full weight to the extent of his pastoral influence” Father Joe? My Father Joe? I was never so arrogant and self-centred as to imagine I was his only friend and penitent. I knew he had other people who came to him for help and some "old friends”, as he called them, especially as he got older. But - "touched the lives of so many people", which if you put two and two together, must mean hundreds?

I'd always believed - simply on the evidence of his deep love and abiding concern - that what was the defining friendship of my life was also a prominent fixture of his. It was immensely disarming and engaging to be treated as if you were the only one in his life; but then, for the time you were with him, you were. He loved the one he was with: spiritually promiscuous, utterly discreet. One of his fellow monks, when I expressed surprise that I was Not The Only One, said: "Ah yes - everyone thought they were Joe's best friend."

And all of us were right. We all were.

I discovered as I read more tributes and asked more questions that he was best known for saving vocations, especially of priests battered by the storms of experimentation and controversy in the post Vatican II Church. But most of those who came to him were laymen like me, ordinary people in all walks of life, struggling, through the world. Many had known him even longer than I had, some for fifty years, some as long as sixty.

A sizable portion of his ministry was gay, people who'd lost lovers to AIDS or were grappling with it themselves, as well as those tortured by the Church's relentless intolerance of different sexual orientation.

It seems that Tony Hendra's Father Joe and our Father Ted had much in common. It's ironic that, for all his closeness to hundreds of people, Ted himself remained the most private of individuals. Of his own present or past he disclosed almost nothing. Maybe a teaspoonful every ten years or so, if you were lucky. For example, I'd always assumed that his second initial, 'P', stood for Patrick, only to read in his death notice 'Edward Philip'. Why, I'm left wondering, Philip'? The Edward (which became Teddy or Ted) was, I gathered, for his mother's brother, Edward Joseph McMahon, a priest of Sydney Archdiocese who died in 1937. But even of this I've never been absolutely certain.

One area, however, about which Ted was not reticent, was his intense love for certain poets: Judith Wright, James McAuley, AD Hope, Hopkins, lames K Baxter. At the top of the list was John Shaw Neilson. Once you knew the story behind this remarkable, miraculous Australian, you could understand why Ted found such inspiration in him. For on the one hand Shaw Neilson's life was, at every turn, deprived, impoverished; his minimal education, his wretchedly poor eyesight, his labouring with pick and shovel along the roads in the harsh Mallee country of Victoria; his sheltering in a tent, unmarried. Yet Shaw Neilson's poems survive and bubble like a spring of clear water in a stoney desert. A favourite for Ted was "The Poor, Poor Country" concluding --­

"The New Year came with heat and dust and the little lakes were low, The blue cranes were my nearest friends and 1 mourned to see them go. I watched their wings so long until I only saw the sky. Down in that poor country no pauper was I."

On the occasional visit to Sydney during the past year or so, I'd make my way to Burwood, walking from the Station along to number 79 Cheltenham Road, Croydon -- The Bishop Ezechiel Moreno Nursing Home. It would be on my return journey, from the Nursing Home to Burwood Station that I'd become consciously aware of the blessing of being able to walk - freely and unassisted.

When I reached room number 7 on my last visit but one, I found the door closed. As I cautiously pushed it open a little, what I saw was a kind of epiphany: the Deposition from the cross. There was Ted suspended between floor and ceiling, held in an apparatus enabling the nurses to transfer him from bed to couch.

That ever-informed, ever-journeying, ever-telephoning Ted had become utterly dependent, unable to converse, to read, to do anything but lie there, day after day, cared for by efficient nurses, visited by friends and family -- yet 'imprisoned'

"….you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt on you and take you where you would rather not" (John 21 : 18)

As I sat there, those words of The Risen Jesus to Peter came to mind, as well as a verse from Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol"

"I know not if the laws be right Or if the laws be wrong. All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the walls are strong. And everyday is like a year, A year whose days are long".

Attached to the wall behind his bed was a small crucifix. One did not need great powers of imagination to make the connection. On the wall at the other side of his room was a long, thin wooden cross, painted in red, black and ochre, a reminder, if one needed it, that here, stretched out helplessly was a "Beloved friend to the Aboriginal People".

On the wall not far from the foot of his bed hung a large framed photograph of his dear parents. It was taken, I believe, at the grotto, Springwood, during a visit to the College in 1947 when Ted was in his first seminary year and Jack and Peg were evidently in their prime.

On Tuesday last, May 17, just after midnight, Ted breathed his last. He had been a week or so at Concord Hospital, the very suburb where, in December 1953, dressed in clerical black and roman collar, with his latin breviary on hand, Ted, aged 22, had commenced his ministry as a priest of the Sydney Archdiocese.

The news of his passing travelled quickly around Sydney and New South Wales and beyond. On the Friday' when Mass came around and we heard the First Reading from Sirach Chapter 6, we could not but think of this "unconditional fellow traveller" of ours.

"A faithful friend is a sure shelter. Whoever finds one has found a rare treasure. A faithful friend is something beyond price; there is no measuring his worth. A faithful friend is the elixir of life" (Sirach 6:] 6-17)

There are too many things to say about this man called Ted Kennedy. Somehow my brain has already wiped the pain of the last few years away. Glimpses of the 40 plus years of knowing Ted keep swirling past my eyes at all times of the day and night.

Ted the 31 year-old when I first met him. A young priest, inspired by the worker priest movement in France, inspired by Dorothy Day’s soup kitchens for the poor in New York, inspired by the priests and bishops living with and for the poor in Central and South America. Inspired by the theologies of Cardijn, Schillebeekx and Hans Kung. Inspired by the life of John Henry Newman, the English Catholic Cardinal who wrote so powerfully of the primacy of conscience in the life of the Church. Ted was like that Eveready battery advertisement on TV: a bolt of lightning powering up all around him. In second year university, I found myself reading the most difficult of theological texts.

Yet another glimpse was Ted at home on his parents’ property in Araluen on the south coast. We’d all drive down in our beaten up VW-ubs and Holdens and crash at his small family farmhouse in the Deua valley. There Ted was not 31, he was 16. Playing the ghost, with a sheet over him running around in the moonlight; or appearing at the window of candlelit dinner parties with a pumpkin head; or laughing as we thought something moved in the darkness of his wooden house. He loved the fact the hallway was so narrow his old aunt had to turn sideways to get through it. He loved his Irish background. He loved the Kennedy name. He loved the fact he had found the exact plot of land near Thurles where his family had come from in Tipperary.

He loved his Irish poets – Yeats especially – and the true Celtic spirituality, not the one imposed from England or Rome. I think he saw a real connection between what the Irish people had been through – the dispossession of their land by the English – and what the Aboriginal people had been through. At our university camps, Ted and all of us would roar to revolutionary Irish songs.

But there was never a triumphalist bone in Ted’s body. He was never out to “win” over anyone. Never to lecture, to preach, to judge. Simply to read the Gospels, to reflect on ourselves, to love one another and to not stand aside from the world but to live it fully. At university, Ted wanted us to be great Christian historians, philosophers and scientists. Later, he wanted us to be great Christian lawyers, journalists, doctors and artists – not in the sense of following rules and saying Rosaries but in loving one another and engaging with the world we were in.

That was all theory. When we all left university – Ted to suburban parishes, the rest of us to jobs and families – the world changed. Ted hated the boredom of most of his appointments to parishes. He hated the outdated clerical structures of it. And he hated the smugness of many of the parishioners who thought being a good Catholic was turning up once a week for an hour.

And then he found Redfern. And I think most of us whites lost a part of him forever. He fell in love. He fell in love with the Aboriginal people. He took on board their suffering. He would come to our place for dinner just bursting with literally in-credible stories of pain, dispossession and racism. I think he looked for solace among his white friends and, in large part, couldn’t find it. He was on a journey of his own. And he would never flinch in going forward on that journey. He told me many times he thought white people were racist and had to seek Aboriginal help to cure them of their illness. The whites should seek forgiveness from the Aboriginal people.

That’s why Ted was so moved by Paul Keating’s extraordinary speech in Redfern Park in 1992. It was quoted in full earlier in this service so I won’t do it again except to say that there was a crucial line at the end of that quote that Keating said and it was this:

“As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.”

I know Ted would love to know those words were resounding here in Redfern again. Wish that we had such a Prime Minister today!

Ted gave his body, his soul, his heart and every ounce of his resilience, endurance and strength to the Aboriginal people. He was so grateful to have learned so much from them. Like a good Irishman, he knew their family networks inside out. He could simply not have given more.

In doing so, he was the perfect priest. A man who, more than anyone I know or could imagine, lived his beliefs to their fullest. A man with an extraordinary capacity to love. He used to say to me, often: “Peter, I love you very much”. What a man!

He lives on in the thousands of lives he has touched. His radical Christian message – that the Church must side with the poor, and every Christian live that reality in their daily lives – will have its day again. If anyone is worthy of sainthood, however it happens, it is Ted. His time will come!

Many years ago, Redfern was a bad place to go into.

Many Kooris had to fight tooth and nail to claim a bit of land that is ours from the start.

Eora, Redfern, home of the Kooris, we were losing the battle and our dignity. When all of a sudden two powerful minds came together to be as one : Mumma-Shirley Smith and Fr Ted Kennedy.

Mumma-Shirley already knew the trouble we were in. But Fr Ted was shocked in the way Kooris were treated. Just going home from the pub was hard. Many police from all local stations come half hour before closing time.

It didn’t matter if you wasn’t drunk - if you was black - into the paddy wagon you would go.

But two minds kept on persisting for a change for the better for Kooris.

They must have talked about the things we didn’t have:

• like proper housing for families with children, • a Medical Centre of our own, • a recreation and playground for children, • proper education for Kooris in schools.

This was the battle to be won, and fight they did, with help from the St Vincent’s Community. Things began to happen.

Jobs for Kooris came from all over the place, the building of the block began, the building of our own Medical Centre and a lot of dignity building back.

On behalf of Eora, Redfern, we want to thank you Mumma-Shirl and Fr Ted for giving back our dignity and culture to where it strongly belongs. HERE.

Thank you.

My name is Margie Kennedy-Gould – I am Ted’s niece, eldest child of his late brother John and Kath Kennedy. I would like to speak on behalf of Marnie and the family and firstly wish to thank all of you who have gathered here today in this most spiritual place to celebrate his extraordinary life.

First I would like to tell you a little of his background: Ted was of bog Irish stock on both sides of his family: one of his forebears, Cornelius Wholohan of Tipperary, was a convict, sentenced in 1831 to transportation for life. One of his great grandfathers, Thomas Kennedy, came freely from Ireland with two of his brothers in the 1850s during the gold rush and settled in Araluen. (The family has had connections with that beautiful place ever since.)

His mother’s mother, Mary O’Brien, we know as Wowie, came from Ireland with two of her sisters in 1875. Wowie, a Gaelic speaker, was a woman of great faith who Marnie says expressed a strong Celtic spirituality rather than any blind religiosity and that this was readily absorbed by Ted as a young boy.

His Irish heritage remained a powerful force throughout his life. He identified strongly with the Irish “travellers”, the “tinkers”, and often talked of the parallels between them and the aboriginal people.

His parents of course were a very strong influence and it was at the family home in Marrickville where he first encountered the reality of people in need who came to his father’s medical practice. Here poor people were given warm personal welcome and were not asked to pay for their medical care.

His mother, Peg, our Nonnie, lived into her nineties. She was also a woman of deep faith, intolerant of injustice, with a strong sense of what was right. She was one to fearlessly speak her mind. She cherished Ted.

He was also much loved by the late Maisie Rohan, another strong Irish influence, who nurtured him for most of her life.

His sister Marnie, who needs no introduction in this company, shared with her brother a very deep friendship. She describes him as having educated her to a new vision of the church and the gospels which allowed her to re-direct her focus and energies to the street retreats and to her ongoing engagement with the poor and the marginalised.

From my own perspective I knew and loved Ted, of course for his vision and his tireless work on this earth, but also as a somewhat unconventional uncle who surprised us and who understood us. When my three brothers and I were little children he arrived one day to surprise us with the gift of a puppy– of course without first consulting our parents; he would take us on long adventures through the countryside and he would often arrive unexpectedly at all hours of the day and night. He never travelled with any luggage; he was spontaneous and unpredictable and always made the time to be with us for family celebrations, even if he was on the way to somewhere else. He taught us what our faith is really about; he was always there for us at times of great sorrow in the family, as well as at times of great joy.

Ted was a complicated man, a man of many passions: he loved poetry and music, theatre, good food and wine and conversation, and he also had an obsession about second hand shops where he would scavenge for old books and old things of beauty and old things that “would come in handy one day.” This interest apparently was inherited from one of his grandfathers (and at times I worry that I feel the stirrings of it in myself.) It became a slight madness and anyone who has visited Burrawang in recent years will understand the extent of this, however he was delighted that the family in recent times has been able to use some of the many beautiful leadlight windows and old doors and old handles and taps and God knows what…he had collected over many years in the building of a little house at his beloved Araluen.

Ted was always able to respond to people with humanity and understanding. At the time of my wedding my father was gravely ill in hospital. I was upset that he would likely be unable to attend the wedding but Ted told me not to worry – he would marry John and I at my father’s bedside. Weddings at that time however were meant to be held only in a church and not anywhere else, but Ted’s paperwork looked fine – the entry in the church register states that we were married at “St Vincent’s” – he just left off the word “Hospital”.

He was not one to be constrained by convention or by regulations that had no relevance or compassion and he battled fiercely against intolerance, prejudice, racism and hypocrisy. His church was boundless and was nurturing of the human spirit, not strangled by empty or meaningless rituals for their own sake.

When he was in hospital a few years ago after one of his major strokes, a young occupational therapist told me that she was concerned that after having his shower Ted did not dry between his toes. She was worried that this indicated some bodily neglect caused by the stroke. I told her gently that Ted had probably never in his life dried between his toes and was most unlikely to start now because his mind was always concentrating on the bigger picture, on things that were important, on things that mattered.

The past few years have been a very difficult time for Ted and for all who have watched his gradual decline. The loss of his independence and particularly his mobility must have been deeply frustrating for him, though in the early times he managed to maintain his close contact with people, not by his usual personal visits, but by telephone, in our experience making more than forty phone calls in each day- just to keep in touch with people- just to make sure they were OK.

Finally, on behalf of the family I would like to extend our gratitude to all the friends, too numerous for me to mention by name, who have supported Ted so magnificently for many years; to the staff of St Ezekiel’s for taking care of him so very well (he ate more vegetables there than ever before in his life), and particularly for their care through the very difficult times of great challenge for Ted, and for them; and also to the staff of Concord Hospital who so gently eased him through his final days.

We love you, Uncle Edward, and we’ll very much miss your presence in our lives, however we will be forever grateful for your legacy.

May the wind be always at your back as you, the ultimate Irish traveller, continue on your journey.

Invitation Our world is frail and we all stand in need every day of grace and strength. Ultimately, we must look to God our prodigal father for our bread and his welcome. I invite you all to soften your minds in his presence here, to turn to Him in prayer for our needs and the needs of those we admire and love. When you hear the simple words “Lord, hear us”, please answer with faith and enthusiasm – “Lord, hear our prayer”.

Dearest Father, we regarded Ted our brother as a holy man in our midst, and now as a saint – but like all men and women, pope or peasant, prostitute or prelate, he comes before you naked – without a penny for the ferryman, without a loin cloth to cover his nakedness.

Welcome him into your smiling presence; cover him over with your warm embrace; may the saints shower him with friendly kisses, and your angels publish his glorious deeds throughout the heavens. There is none of us worthy, Lord. All of us must needs have a childlike confidence in your fatherly and prodigal compassion.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

We all here turn our sad faces to you, Lord, and remember the man who for us was powerful, like your Son – upright, uncompromising, a living treasure, hard, earthy, compassionate, welcoming sinners, a pebble in the comfortable boot of establishment, a man who spilt his guts for others –

Welcome Father Ted to your fatherly, hugging embrace. Show him your sweet mercy; reward him for the generosity of his life, for the evangelical message he lived and proclaimed to us, for constantly reminding those of us with earthly or heavenly power of their ridiculous weaknesses, their cruel blindness and petty pomp; for showing us the true worth of corporate salaries and the stupidity of the BRW rich list. Our Father Ted comes before you, Lord, with a life poured out for all, with empty pockets and dirty hands. Hug him hard for us.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

We remember the oppressed, the gaoled, the poor and deprived, the alienated and ostracised, the twisted and the lonely – all precious to Father Ted in his lifetime and to you, Lord, in the hidden recesses of your creation- they all cry out for justice and a fair go, and whimper in the crevices of society. The stranger, the misunderstood, the rejects, the druggies and methos.

Raise up an army of Kennedys in our midst, to bandage the wounded, to bury the dead, to share the fruits of your earth, to protect the weak and welcome the stranger. Soften hearts; strengthen backs; let blood flow again in veins so that your oppressed poor may inherit the earth and have a share in its wealth.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

We pray for the people of Redfern – the black and the white, all men and women, sexual beings of all persuasions, those of religious beliefs and none – We have lost a fierce friend to encourage us, a powerful God botherer, an untidy, grimy prophet, a Jesus figure in our midst.

We are without comfort and support – Our little community is bereft.

We suffer the barbs of hostility, the cold shoulder of aloof indifference.

Lord, we long for another true shepherd to gather us in - one who will include all of us, who will not leave the lame, the flyblown in desert, who has an immense sheep pen, broad enough for all. We seek a courageous leader who will be your agent in the world to change our lives, to renew the face of the earth.

May Redfern forever be a home for our indigenous brothers and sisters. May it be a place where they can gather, where they can feel accepted, comfortable and at home, - free of criticism, untroubled by prejudice, safe from persecution. This was Ted’s wish, his urgent prayer. It is a prayer we make to you Lord in fervent hope of resurrection.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

We recall the beautiful homilies preached by Father Ted in his little Redfern church; the distribution of bread and the sharing of his modest collections; the untidy presbytery accommodation shared with all comers; Our Father Ted, like St Francis, like your Son Jesus, learnt to love what moved to other rhythms than his own.

We remember that this domain where we stand today was Ted’s territory, his parish. It has been the focus of pain, of anger, echoing with the cries of suffering, a place of protest, of empty needles, of crushed cardboard wine casks. Redfern has had a history of division and violence. It is seen by many as a symbol of failure, of imperial colonial intransigence – but it was also the stage on which a generous Prime Minister, in October 1992, addressed the indigenous people of the land in simple words of transparent honesty without spin, when he brought tears to their eyes and a flutter of hope to their hearts.

Lord, bring Redfern to life, to peaceful, happy co-existence. May Ted’s old parish and this domain be a symbol to the nation of hope, of humble reconciliation and forgiveness. Drain the poison from the waterholes, and the prejudice from our hearts.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

Who would Father Ted have us remember before the Lord?

• His devoted, gentle sister Marnie.
• All the lovely girls, too numerous to name, who ministered to him, who attended him in his hour of need, through Pat Durnan must be recognised by name.
• The Aboriginal brothers and sisters who made his life so meaningful and put muscle into his spirituality.
• His many friends and companions who weep at his loss.
• The owners of telephone companies who will certainly notice his passing.
• The medicos and nurses who treated him tenderly, the sisters and staff of St Ezechiel Moreno who cared for him in his months of agony, in his hours of darkness, before whom we kneel in humble gratitude.

May their praises be sung in heaven before you, O Lord.

Lord, hear us All: Lord, hear our prayer

Finally we also remember the other members of the Kennedy family who have lived their lives and journeyed on to join the saints – Peg and Jack Kennedy, Celie, Dr John, Kath and Martha.

We recall Mum Shirl, and the smiling face of Ted’s friend Bob Bellear.

We remember with special affection the spirits of the many aboriginals, young and old, who were Ted’s brothers and sisters and whom he buried up and down the country.

May they all be granted a soft landing. May perpetual light shine on them. May they rest in peace.

Amen

Final Prayer

These are our wishes, Lord, and our prayers. We bring them before you and leave them down in your joyful presence in the hope that you will hear and answer them. We refer these wishes to you in the name of Jesus.

Amen

Thirty-three years ago Ted opened the presbytery door to Aunty Helen and so began his extraordinary journey here at Redfern and for many of us our journey was entwined with his. His early days with that rag tag group of lay and religious people who threw their lot in with him and the poor, were tumultuous and life changing.

None of us here today would want him to have suffered one more day but our grief and loss is raw. We have lost someone we all loved deeply. I loved you Ted and feel I have lost my soul mate.

Ted lived his beliefs through a lens that was crystal clear and authentic to the true values of the gospels. He lived his life committed to justice for the poor the marginalised and those who are rejected by society and the church. A special place in his heart was with the Aboriginal people of Redfern and beyond. They recognised a true friend as did the mentally ill, the refugee, homosexual people and those who are seen as other in our world.

He taught us the deadly secret that you have to go to that dark and alienating place to find the rejected and the outcast and there in that brokenness you will find Jesus. The Beatitudes we sing today reflect so much of Ted’s life in action. He was the Good shepherd who tenderly cared for his flock while courageously defending their rights.

Ted was loved so much by the littlest of our brothers and sisters and this is a testament to the integrity and beauty of this holy man.

He never wanted to be the power broker but rather listened to the voice of those who suffered racism, prejudice and suffering. These people became his teachers. He understood that gospel passage’ you will always have the poor among you’ because he knew we had broken our covenant with God. He shared the pain and suffering of so many and his journey was not without suffering. But he also had the gift to celebrate our joys and happiness too.

Ted had the extraordinary gift of embracing us all as part of his family. He connected us to each other forging friendships with him and about him. Ted sought and found the good in us all and lived with our faults and imperfections because that is what Ted did the best. He loved our brokenness while accepting with humility his own limitations. And how he loved, with passion and loyalty. We have all been touched by his presence in our lives.

Ted was gracious and hospitable. He loved good wine, fine food, no greens please. He had a voracious appetite for literature and poetry. He had a wicked sense of humour. Some time back in his inimitable way he ordered me to kneel at his feet and promise to maintain and continue the fight for justice. There was no kneeling at his feet! But I promised that what he had taught me by his example and through the gospel would be the blueprint for my life. He had one of the finest intellects in our contemporary world yet he was so humble. He had an extraordinary gentleness that many of us have been privy to and on the receiving end of.

Ted felt deep pain and sadness at what has happened to the Aboriginal people of his beloved St Vincent’s since his retirement. At times he displayed a white-hot anger at the treatment of Aboriginal people and the community. It was an anger steeped in his uncompromising stance against racism and injustice. Probably the greatest gift Ted shared with us was his uncompromising stance on these issues.

He urged all who came into his life not to live vicariously through him but to seek and find through relationship with the poor the authentic truth. He urged us to go to that place in our life and take with us the struggle wherever we might be.

Ted loved us. And how he loved. His life and his example have sown a seed in us to continue his legacy. On behalf of many Ted, we know you are listening, we will carry your love and your dream in our hearts. Today we celebrate your life and grieve deeply our loss.

I know that when you arrived into eternity you were met by all your loved ones, especially the black angels Patti, Dicko, Mum Shirl, Normie, and hundreds and hundreds of Aboriginals who now have their beloved TK, Fr. Ted, Fr hEdward Kennedy (as only Mum Shirl could say it) and Teddles with them.

There is much celebration in eternity today with the chant and dance of a great corroboree, and together all the angels are singing their song and singing you home.

Look after us Ted…we love you.

Ted Kennedy had a great love of Ireland and empathy with the struggles of the Irish. He was very familiar with what Patrick Pearse had to say at the grave side of O’Donovan Rossa. What Pearse had to say was this:

“Splendid and holy causes are served by splendid and holy men.”

The cause to which Ted Kennedy selflessly devoted his life was the liberation of the human spirit. Ted found the expression of that liberation in poetry, in art, in theatre, in friendship and in the sheer joy of life. Of course for Ted, the most potent expression of the liberation of the human spirit was to be found in the teachings of Jesus Christ and in the exploration of those teachings by people such as Cardinal Newman, Karl Rahner, Dorothy Day, the liberation theologians of South America, Thomas Merton and of course Shirley Smith.

The liberation of the human spirit is surely a splendid and holy cause and Ted, was a splendid and holy man. He was splendid and holy in the fierceness of his love for Aboriginal people; in his heroic faith, a faith untrammelled by dogma. He was splendid and holy in his disobedience to the forces of gravity that defeat so many of us. He was splendid and holy in his authority, an authority bestowed not from clerical office but from the very significance of what he had to say. Ted was splendid and holy in his action, in his refusal to act, in his gentleness and in his anger. He was splendid and holy in conscience and in the imaginative possibilities of what it means to be fully human. Finally, and of course most magnificently, he was splendid and holy in his friendship and love, of which so many of us are the rich beneficiaries.

Ted Kennedy was a great friend and I loved him.

On behalf of Ted’s family, his friends and the community of St Vincent’s Redfern, I welcome you all to Ted’s Requiem which will be celebrated by his friend Bishop David Cremin.

Before we commence the Mass, let me thank the Aboriginal people of Redfern for their invitation to farewell Ted on this their sacred land, and introduce Richard Green, who will Welcome us to Country. Following the Welcome to Country, the Mass will commence.