Dr Patricia Anne Brennan AM (1944-2011)
PROPHETS and visionaries can be uncomfortable people to meet and not everyone appreciates their habit of shining a clear light into dark, unvisited places.Patricia Brennan was such a visionary, in both the religious and medical worlds. Her passionate advocacy of the rights of women in the Anglican church, and of the needs of victims of sexual abuse in the wider community, did not always win her admirers.
She was a woman of fierce integrity which would not allow her to gloss over what she saw as inequality. At least one opponent labelled her as a strident feminist in the mould of Germaine Greer.
But those who knew her saw beyond the relentless intellect. They knew that she wept for the people she saw as victims in every sense and appreciated and loved her determination to work for justice.
Born Patricia Wilkinson, she had a conventional Anglican upbringing.
After graduating with a medical degree from Sydney University she went with her new husband Robert Brennan to Nigeria, where they both worked as missionaries. She was sometimes the only doctor for hundreds of miles.
The couple had three children and on their return to Australia, Dr Brennan became concerned with the position of women in the Christian church, and the Anglican church in Australia in particular, where women were denied equality in many ways, most particularly by being excluded from the ranks of the clergy.
And so began a long, passionate and often harrowing journey, where she drew together a number of groups with similar concerns and founded the organisation known as the Movement for the Ordination of Women.
They began in 1983, in the manner of Luther, nailing 12 theses to the door of the Chapter House of St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney.
The movement took off, generating an inevitable conflict between those who thought shock tactics were the only way to go and those who were reluctant to antagonise the conservatives in the church.
But after the first Brisbane meeting in 1984, Linda Walters expressed the effect of Dr Brennan’s words: “We came together so jaded and tentative, angry and frustrated, hurt and disillusioned, and as we articulated all this pain with varying degrees of confidence, the energy began to flow.”
Dr Brennan went with five other women, including myself, to the 1988 Lambeth Conference, where we stood outside Canterbury Cathedral with our home-made banners. We were kissed by Desmond Tutu, graciously welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, applauded by the American bishops, but studiously ignored by our own Australian Anglican Primate.
Despite the hostility of many of the clergy, one of whom publicly declared that ordaining a woman would be like ordaining a meat pie, in 1992 the dream came true with the first women being ordained by Dr Peter Carnley in Perth.
Today, there are more than 400 female priests and two female bishops in Australia, although Dr Brennan’s home diocese of Sydney still refuses to ordain women. It was a unique time in church history and Dr Brennan was made a member of the Order of Australia for her services to women.
She then turned her formidable passion and intellect to the field of sexual abuse, serving as medical director of the Liverpool Sexual Assault Service, where she brought in new ways of treating victims and helping them to find a voice.
At the time the cancer that eventually killed her was diagnosed, she was a consultant forensic physician in the field.
Close to death, she chose the hymns for her funeral, including one that encapsulates the philosophy that guided her all her life:
God be in my head, and in my understanding.
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking.
God be in my mouth and in my speaking.
God be in my heart, and in my thinking.
God be at mine end, and at my departing.
And whoever or whatever we conceive God to be, those words sum up her life’s journey.
Dr Patricia Brennan is survived by her husband Robert, her children Kate, Peter and James and her grandson Gabriel.
She is mourned by all who knew her.
Published in Courier Mail on March 17, 2011
22/03/2011 at 4:40 pm Permalink
I do appreciate this obituary, and I remember on numerous occasions meeting with Patricia in the 1980s at the time she was involved with MOW. I’d add a comment to say the public and private face of Patricia may have been slightly different – I did not find her ‘uncomfortable’ to meet, rather someone with a great sense of humour and overwhelmingly a positive person. What concerns me though is this obituary appears to be a copy and paste from a website without mention of the obituary’s author, and that’s because the original website did not contain the author, in other words, the SME website administrator needs to do a bit more research to find the author. It’s happened before here on the SME website, with links to videos for example, without acknowledging or referencing the source in its entirety. The obituary is a good one, and obviously picked because of the “social justice” relevance, however the history of the author’s involvement with Patricia in this case is very relevant and interesting, and lends a Brisbane perspective that may have been missed with incomplete referencing.
26/03/2011 at 2:17 pm Permalink
Thanks Tim, the source is cited as the Courier Mail March 17, 2011 and given the content and context of this article this acknowledgment provides the reader with sufficient information should they wish to find out further details in regards to the authorship. Videos are shared via a link and as such are not on this site, the url providing details of origin. Where possible we attempt to provide details of all information that is posted to this site. Thank you again for you comments and support.
John Fitz-Walter
26/03/2011 at 8:24 pm Permalink
Hello Contributors,
Patricia must have been a noble person. Pity her well meaning reforms are meaningless. Christianity must rid itself of the delusional priest infestation not gender balance it. The New Christianity is to be the Christianity of the individual; it is to empower the spiritual renaissance of the individual.
Those still needing priests to keep them safe in fear and guilt should either grow up or move to Nigeria. Infantile Christianity is big in Africa. As is poor education, poverty, exploitation especially of women, political corruption, smoking and the nineteen fifties. That’s where the fear cripples of the Vatican are now getting their priests. It really is desperation stuff: taking young men from third world societies and placing them in a culture of which they have no understanding.
The teachers of the New Christianity will be people who know “the way” because they have been “there” themselves; not the likes of Peter and Terry who have just been to priest school. What is their gender? It’s irrelevant as St Paul says.
Love Fosco
26/03/2011 at 10:23 pm Permalink
thanks John. how’s the art going? the author of this obituary is Courier-Mail journalist and former MOW member Alison Coates. My mum is currently applying for a $20k grant to write the history of the Brisbane MOW.. I’m thrilled about that – a chance for mum to get more in touch with her Anglican past. I am a bit sad about that passing of an era with St Mary’s – I think it’s important that liberal catholicism that included in at least 1 church in every major city – the Catholic church is a broad church. seeing you guys at SME gettin a bit older, like me, and a new generation coming to St Mary’s now who knows almost nothing of the history of our church 1980-2009 is a tad sad. SME is not a unified group – there’s arguments within it, and debates on which direction to go, but on a personal level, I have great respect for many people there – it has been grand to live through the era of St Mary’s that we have, come what may of SME, and whatever new and interesting direction you guys plan to take, many wish you well. Tim
29/03/2011 at 12:12 pm Permalink
Former Sydney Uni Arts faculty head, now ABC interviewer Stephen Crittenden interviewing Patricia Brennan http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2011/3174028.htm