Edmund Campion, Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing. 2009

This is one of the most inspiring books I have read for some time. Though I can imagine Ted Kennedy being unimpressed with my praise! He was not that kind of person!

Father Ted Kennedy (1931 - 2005) was most well known for this parish work in Redfern, inner Sydney, home to one of the country's largest urban populations of Indigenous Peoples. It was poverty-stricken, rundown and neglected by the politicians - even though it is only literally walking distance from the State Parliament House and business district. It is a world away from the corridors of power.

Ted Kennedy arrived at Redfern in 1971 and by trial and error arrived created a new type of ministry of working with Sydney's least, lonely and lost. It was very difficult and controversial work. Father Ed Campion has written brilliantly about this work.

I got to know Kennedy in the mid-1970s while I was a student activist at the nearby University of Sydney. He was a charismatic figure in a rumpled sort of way. He would not have approved of my calling him "charismatic" but there was something about him that set him apart from others in the church and suggested that he had some good ideas.

In reading the book, five points occurred to me about the book and Kennedy's life. First, the book shows how Kennedy learned on the job, especially at Redfern. He was open to new ideas and helped create a new way of working with Indigenous Peoples. He never stopped learning.

Second, as so often with Christian pioneers, he managed to operate despite the church bureaucracy and not because of it. The Catholic hierarchy stopped him from doing even better work. I just wonder what could have been achieved if the full church resources had been placed behind his work and enabled him to make the most of his ideas.

Campion quotes Kennedy's colleague Father Jerry Golden's advice on how to survive in the church: (i) Golden did not mix with bishops (ii) he paid little attention to theologians and (ii) he did not read the official churches newspapers. Good advice irrespective of the denomination!

Third, despite all the hassles he stayed within the church. I have come across so many talented nuns and priests who have just given up and left. An example would be Father Bruce Kent in London whom I have known for four decades - a very elegant priest indeed and charismatic in a smooth way - who eventually led the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the days of the Thatcher Government. In the end, despite being apparently destined for high Catholic office he gave up his priestly status.

(A link between Kennedy and Kent is that Kennedy preached on the life and death of Franz Jagerstatter an Austrian peasant executed in 1943 for refusing to fight for Hitler [p 49], while Kent was part of the international campaign to get papal recognition for this martyrdom in 2007).

Fourth, it seems that an Australian era is dying with the passing of people like Kennedy: the belief that entry into the Australian church (irrespective of denomination) is a way of changing society. Some young people - thankfully - still believe that it is possible to work for a better society and so are recruited to good causes. But the church no longer seems to attract the number of enthusiastic priests and nuns it used to. Young people find other avenues into which to channel their enthusiasm.

Finally, Kennedy involved good people in his work. For example, Campion talks of Wiradjuri woman Shirley Smith (pp 87-98). She used to visit imprisoned Indigenous prisoners and when challenged on her right to do so by prison officials she said simply "I'm his Mum". By the time I got to know her through Rev Sir Alan Walker's National Goals and Directions Movement, she was well established as "Mum Shirl". She also ended up in Kennedy's orbit and was a great asset.

To conclude, this is an entrancing study of Christianity with its sleeves rolled up.

The book can be purchased by clicking here.

Keith Suter