St Mary's

Some of you may remember me as a member of this community but most of you – I suspect – know me as the filmmaker who produced the documentary The Trouble with St Mary’s. I am here to talk to you about the film from my perspective as the filmmaker.

We made two versions for the film. The shorter version was for the ABC Compass programme and the longer version which most of you saw at the Hawthorne cinema was more or less financed by the two producers of the film Veronica Fury and myself. We did that because we believed that the film deserved a longer treatment and could find a committed audience outside the television box. This is the version competing at the Brisbane Film Festival in a couple of weeks for a documentary prize.

Before I continue, let me say a few words about how I came to know this community. I first came into contact with St Mary’s in 2005. A friend of mine was attending and he suggested I come along. I am not a Catholic and I wasn’t even baptized. I had a challenging childhood and growing up I blamed God for the fact that he did not intervene in my life. I carried this reluctance about God into my young adult years. It was all hocus pocus to me.

Ironically though, as I was working through my issues, it was through having a spiritual experience that I was able to start letting go of my past. The idea of a greater power call it God, or call it the “unknown” I now call it the great mystery I know nothing about J gave me a kind of peace and it turned me away from self centredness to something much bigger.

So it was through this journey that I came to attend almost every Sunday night. I would quietly participate in communion with you. I would be reenergised by the end of the evening and I would feel the presence of this higher power. I looked forward to Sunday evenings at St Mary’s.

And then in 2008, the Archbishop’s letter began the process towards the community’s exile and I found myself picking up the camera and documenting the events as they happened. I contacted the ABC and after a long process and with a lot of help from my co-producer Veronica Fury

As a member of this community I was passionate about what has happened and as a filmmaker I had the responsibility to tell the story in a way that leaves out as little as possible. And let me tell you how difficult it was as a filmmaker to have to see my own community as a “project”. But I had no choice if I wanted to tell the story to a television audience and to people outside this community. The story I wanted to tell was about the conflict that ensued between the Catholic Church and the St Mary’s faith community led by Peter and Terry and how such conflict affects everybody involved.

Fast forward 2 years and two versions of the film are now finished. The ABC version – is shorter with a narrator. It is more compact and it has been packaged and made for Television audiences more specifically who watch Compass.  Some of us may not like this format for its tone and delivery – but it is the way that most documentaries for television are done today created to communicate to a particular audience who are NOT part of this community or associated with it in any way. It’s just a different language. And yes there is a sense of heightened drama because of the format and the need to get across the story in the most effective but this can’t be equated with sensationalism because sensationalism is when you intentionally omit facts and information and create hype. In this film no hype was created and no facts were distorted.

But obviously the film – both versions – is my interpretation of what happened. What story did I want to tell in the film?

Was it about a community turning into a cult? Or about the Evil Catholic Church imposing its will on a peace loving community? It was neither.

When the shorter version of film was broadcast on the ABC, the response from across the country was overwhelming. Most of the responses that came in were positive and in favour of Peter and Terry and the community. They reflected on the courage, the vision and the strength of the community. So when I heard some of the very passionate criticisms from community members about both versions of the film, first I didn’t understand. I was perplexed.

What I saw was injustice and arrogance by the Catholic Church but I also saw how the community struggled with its identity; how Peter and Terry struggled with the weight of it all and how remarkably Peter and Terry changed as people and leaders throughout the process. What was exciting to me – and still is – is the idea that this community is on a journey of spiritual discovery – exploring the great mystery and that members of the community are questioning their own understanding of that mystery as well as questioning their own priests in order to advance their own as well as the community’s spirituality all in pursuit of social justice. What I was also excited about is that this is the only community I know where its priest admits his own fallibility not only to his own community but to the whole world How can anyone draw the conclusion from the film that it was alluding to the idea that community was becoming a cult? What is this if not a community in spiritual making; a community of love and courage? Democracy at its best?

But the film was not just about what I thought. It was about the different point of views on both sides of the fence that exist out there about what happened in this conflict. All this I admit make for a more dramatic film. BUT what they also do is make the story richer and give an opportunity for the audience to see more than just one side of the story. I have to say that I may not have agreed with everybody but I developed empathy for all involved.

What we see when we look into the mirror is almost never what others see. I know how hard it is to watch one’s self on screen. I should know I have made several films about myself  -one of which almost killed me – and even today after many months of making a film about myself, that I find it hard to see it for what it is. So I respectfully ask you to be patient and to be lenient with and not underestimate the power that this film, that this story can have on the wider community. I see this film travelling not just to Festivals and TV stations around the world but most importantly to the countless spiritual and Christian communities around the world who are grappling with similar issues who are engaged in similar discussion. I believe that this will have value for other spiritual communities around the world.

No doubt that if this film was made by someone else it would have been a different film. What you see in both versions is not the whole truth. The whole truth may be a lot uglier or a lot prettier than I have painted. But this is what I saw. The conflicts, arguments and trauma as well as the celebration of the community – it’s all part of the package whether you like it or not – as I recall Micheal Leunig saying at the screening of the film at Hawthorne.

What I say to those that still feel that the film misrepresents what really happened s that many years down the track when we’ll all be dead, a research student will decide to write her PHD thesis on the St Mary’s community. At her disposal will be countless articles from a newspaper called The Courier Mail. She will of course have a copy of the Bible, and other books such as “The priest who threatened Rome”, and then she will also have copies of both versions of a film called “The Trouble With St Mary’s”. We will have no control over what she will conclude but hopefully she will see that there was a community that believed in social justice. And I hope that she will see that when this community was forced to leave their home at St Mary’s church they did it with dignity and conviction and despite the difficulties succeeded in maintaining their belief in exploring the Great Mystery and pursuing social justice.

Please come to the screenings at the Brisbane Film Festival where you can have an opportunity to express your support or your issues with the film in front of a whole audience and ask questions.

I don’t have any deep and thought provoking conclusions to leave you with only a quote from somebody who saw the ABC version of the film and has decided to take the film to the US. This is what he had to say in his email to me: “It is an extraordinary, remarkable document, and I am extremely keen to use it as a key session for this retreat for other leaders and thinkers throughout the USA who have felt called to move beyond the Roman institutional model of Church”.