Jesus tells
an interesting parable to people who ask to be His follower.
He reminds those ambitious people that, choosing to follow Him means you better run to keep up and it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
It’s in the gospel of St. Luke (14:28-30)
“For which of you, desirous of
building a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, if he have what
[is needed] to complete it; in order that, having laid the foundation of it,
and not being able to finish it, all who see it do not begin to mock at him, saying,
This man began to build and was not able to finish?”
To you who are reading my message for you is that I hope you finish things you have started. It took me over 16 years until I finally published my expose of the machinations of the Catholic Church and its influence over the power structures it operates under. Unholy Silence (www.unholysilence.com) was always going to be completed but until it was available for people to read, I felt unfulfilled.
I have also written a few other books that are at various stages of completion as well as a few landscape paintings that are yet to have their final touches with the brush. I hate leaving things undone. Maybe you do too?
What is that you always wished you had done? What is stopping you doing it?
I know many people over the years who told me things like, "I left my husband/wife after 20 years of marriage because he/she was holding me back from achieving my dream".
Now I would never promote divorce just to fulfil a dream but I do encourage people to seek personally to have no regrets about things they wished they had done.
I feel my personal sense of happiness comes from believing I am working towards my life's purpose. I can go to my grave a happy man if I have fulfilled all I set out to do. As St Paul said, "I have run the race and all there is left is to pick up the garland (the prize)".
You should finish the things you started.
The passage above from Luke is doubly relevant and appropriate to
me because it was literally true. It’s a long story which I will tell you the
short version of here because I am sure I must have written it somewhere before
in my blog.
To me, a church is not a church
without a bell tower, displaying the symbolising of the cross above the
treeline so everyone in town knows where the church is. Also it has bells to
ring out the start of Mass and the end of funerals and weddings.
At Padre Pio Parish in Glenmore
Park, the bishops didn’t share my enthusiasm for the tower I wanted to complete
so they froze my access to MY OWN PARISH funds!
Was I annoyed? Was I feeling
defeated? No. I just raised my own. Miraculously people came forward giving donations
that equalled the EXACT amount I needed to complete the work.
Thirty eight thousand dollars.
People just came from nowhere giving me big sums of money.
Now if I was the crook cleric I am
being accused of by my adversaries I could have taken that money and run. No
one knew about the donations (except the parish secretary whom I always briefed
on everything I was doing – with the exception of my wife on the side). But the
donors all said, “I don’t want this receipted, I don’t want any adulation, I don’t
want any recognition. I’m giving this to you Kevin because we believe in you”.
In fact, I received lots of
donations for that church not because people believed in Catholicism, the Pope
or even God. They did it because they trusted me and believed in the ideals I
stood for. Of course I am not saying, I wanted to be believed in more than God.
Of course I tried to point the glory back to the Creator in whose honour I was
building the church and tower. I didn’t take it with me. I couldn’t if I wanted
to. I knew I would leave the area one day but I still wanted God to be honoured
and all to see that glowing cross illuminating the cold nights of Glenmore Park and remember how much Jesus loves them.
Of course I hope they spare a prayer
for the poor priest who appeared to have abandoned them, when he in fact, moved
on to a different phase of life with a different tower to build.
More blessings to you for reading!
I re-read this and it sounded a tad narcissistic. I realise that there were many people who organised fundraisers for that Church in Glenmore Park, not just me. People donated because they believed in those people too. Also, I don't want you to think that I was a person of complete integrity and honesty because as you know if you have read my book (Unholy Silence) you would know I had lived a double life for a while and deceitfulness became something I was accustomed to. But deep down and with all sincerity my desire has always been to serve God and please Him alone. Sure I admit, I lied sometimes to achieve my aims (again, you can read all that www.unholysilence.com) but at the end of the day, I didn't see being the administrator of a parish that is part of an organisation that has raped children & then paid off the victims as "serving the Lord". In our Diocese I saw so many contradictions and I still firmly believe that history will condemn the Catholic Church over its insistence on clerical celibacy. And for not monitoring the private lives of its priests. My example was meant to expedite that process but sadly my methodology meant that my actions were confusing.
ReplyDeletehi, I enjoy reading all your blogs for the compare and contrast :). however, I am very curious on why you did not delay your marriage until after you withdrew from the priesthood? when you knew that as a prerequisite to become a priest you should remain celibate. Furthermore, I one hundred percent agree on you writing your book to expose any priests, however, I would have just taken the full list of the names and the proof I had directly to the police, and made reports, I would not have published those names in a book and waited till the book came out for inquiries to start. If those priests were sexually assaulting young children at the time you were writing your book, then those things could have been avoided. Without sounding negative, I do want to to congratulate you on finding love, and having the guts to expose anyone who you think is wrong. However, I would like to tell you that you did not necessary do those things in the manner I would have done them!! I wonder if you know who I am, we use to speak for quite some time :).
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading my blog and for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that I didn’t do things quite in the correct order but as I have attempted to justify, things just happened that way and were steamrolling in a certain direction which I now consider serendipitous and blessed.
I DID take my evidence to the police and church authorities (including George Pell) whom I thought would be interested to prevent scandal and further damage being done to the reputation of the church but they shocked with their a) denials and b) willingness to lie about their knowledge or ignorance of my allegations. In the end, I just had to trust my instincts and felt that I was doing the right thing in the right way.
By exposing my own sins I proved how others were doing it.
Don’t think I named everyone. I still have others who I believed were sincerely repentant and I felt in Christian charity (in terms of “Do unto others what you would want them to do for you”) I would give them the chance to make good on their repentance and resign.
But they didn’t.
One is in a significant area of influence and I am still vacillating over whether I should expose him. I am seeing little reason to defend his reputation as he had done nothing to defend mine. However, I am also fearful that my exposure of him would be enough to push him over the edge - that is, suicide.
I am not willing at the moment to have his death on my soul but I am quite sure I don’t want him to continue sexualising his relationships that he has only been able to establish because of his position of influence.
I have given plenty of hints to the hierarchy for them to conduct their own inquiry but as of today they are not inclined to investigate. That is the main reason I left priesthood in the way I did. To create maximum scandal and cause the Church to be called to account for its inaction on priestly pretenders.
I hold out hope that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sexual Abuse will expose the flaws in the system and force the Church to re-address the issue of mandatory priestly celibacy… but I am not holding my breath while I wait.
No I don't know who you are.
I wish you had dropped a hint in your message..
Thanks for your reply, you certainly had a very good influence on my religious life (in a very good way). And you provided the church of Glenmore park a very close connection with God in the time you were there. So I would like to say on behalf of the parish of Glenmore park thank you for all the years of service you have done for us, I wish I could have said goodbye to you in person, but unfortunately I was in Padova (this is the hint :)) and I still am in Padova(the other hint :)). If any priest is doing harm to other people or breaking his celibacy please report him to the police or the church authorities, respectively. In the case of reporting him to the police, please obtain a copy of your report, so that later on you can say look I reported him, and they took three years to arrest him. so with that being said on a more social notice, how are you going, health wise? you still run? you still keep dogs? :) I still run (another hint) :)
ReplyDeleteOK now I remember you Professor Anonymous. How is your research and work going in Padova? Are you still thinking of becoming a priest? Unfortunately, when people closer to God they feel the need to commit to Jesus in a public way by becoming a priest, brother or nun.. but it is possible to be committed to our Lord publicly and live a normal life, leading people closer to Jesus. The Church needs to promote ministry of lay life.. meaning you can be a committed, leading CHristian disciple of Jesus without having to wear distinctive clothing or have people bow and scrape to you. BY the way, are you still running? I hope you are not falling over too many times. By the way, do you really believe that St Anthony's tongue is incorrupt in that church at Padova? Looked pretty ugly to me.. decomposing?
ReplyDelete:) Bravo!!! :). After a very long contemplation and thought, I had reached the conclusion that "the committing to Christ in such a public way" was not the calling for me. And that was what I wanted to find out, I was unsure if I was called to this ministry or to serve Christ in a different way (lay life (there using your terminology again :)). And this is certainly required of me I believe as the old saying goes you never know unless you ask (might not be an actual old saying, it might be something I completely made up :)). Ok for a 700+ years old tongue that is not sitting in any form of preservative, it looked in a very good shape. I visited it many times and I seen it from about 2 meters away through three layers of glass (but yes I really believe it is his tongue, and of-course I see it is uncorrupt). p.s. i still run I stopped falling over though, but I moved on to stabbing myself accidentally with every sharp object I use (lots of trips to the emergency (but I am always getting away without any serious damage :)). Also you can call me Mr :) I don't like Prof or Dr, they are terrible!!
ReplyDeleteThat's probably the right decision Mr Jajo. I've seen the tongue a bit closer than you & you are very naïve if you think its 700 years old. And it didn't resemble any tongue I have seen. If you have been to see any other saints allegedly incorrupt some of them are in various stages of incorruption. Some like Padre Pio looked a bit rotten but covered in plastic (wax) masks. I worry about that. If they were incorrupt, why cover? I will send you a picture of St Anthony's tongue. But I was also wondering, why cut it out of a corpse? We don't speak with our tongues (even if St James claims we do..)
ReplyDeleteI believe it is real and that old and incorrupt. Call me naive, or call me out of my mind, that's my believe and that is what I choose to believe
ReplyDeleteAnd I used to too. But I decided to use my logic and impartially look at the evidence rather than choosing to belief something that defied my ability to reconcile the truth. The truth of some of the claims of "incorruption" was that Churches sold postcards and other souvenirs and forbade photographs (eg. St Bernadette) claiming the flash would damage the relic. But when I asked to take a pic WITHOUT flash and was still refused, I knew something was odd.
DeleteI do see some relics as true and I do believe in the Shroud of Turin as the true burial cloth of Jesus
You could not take a picture because of Italian rules. If it says no pictures it means no pictures with a flash without a flash it does not matter. Also use of pictures in museums is not allowed what do they have to hide? I think it is after all personal what you choose to believe or not. You are not a forensic investigator and neither am I however if you find five that support your theories about these relics being fake I can probably also find five that support mine. Because scientific evidence in these matters usually support pro and against theories...
ReplyDelete