Developments Up North - St Mary's South Brisbane and Fr Peter Dresser

Well, these guys are certainly forcing our bishops to act like bishops.

Cathnews reports

1) that St Mary's South Brisbane looks like they have dug in their heels and won't budge.

2) Bathurst priest Peter Dresser has declared that a human being can't be God and so Jesus wasn't God.

Re the first situation, Bishop Bathersby appears to be put in a spot he would rather not have had to deal with. Goodness knows how Bishop Pat Power would deal with the situation if he had too. On the one hand, I find it hard to understand why Fr Kennedy and his parish have refused the fairly simple request to use the authorised prayers for the Eucharist, put on an extra piece of clothing for the Mass, and having your lay people preach at events other than Mass? Heck, you could give way on all those things and still get on with your usual heresies - thousands of others are doing exactly that.

But of course, you and I know that there is a reason the Universal Church insists upon these things. And so does Fr Kennedy. Give him his due. Like the joke PE quoted in a recent combox:

Q. When did you stop being Catholic?
A. When I realised I wasn't one.

For more stories on this, see I'll excommunicate you: archbishop (The Australian, 3/11/08)
Brisbane church faces axe over liberal practices (ABC News, 2/11/08)
Bishop backs gay move by parish (Canberra Times, 3/11/08

But I wonder if (jumping to the other story now) Fr Peter Dresser is even aware that he isn't Catholic any more? In an interview on Livenews (30/10/08)('Jesus was not God' priest speaks to LIVENEWS.com.au ) he claims that he is "a very sincere Catholic" and said "I cherish my Catholic religion very much" - but if that is so, he has a funny way of saying it, viz:

"This whole matter regarding Jesus being God ... not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point for millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion ... No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that."

I would have thought that the doctrine of the Incarnation was a pretty basic factor in his cherished "Catholic Religion". After all, isn't that what it is all about?