Bernard Kennedy

Beginning in 1978 at the age of 26, Kennedy was deacon at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Churchtown, Dublin, a position he held until his resignation the following year. He was ordained in 1979 at Dublin's Holy Cross Seminary[2] and in the same year became the youth ministry coordinator at Dublin's Church of Our Lady of Victories and a teacher of religious education at Dublin's Sallynoggin College of Further Education. In 1982, he became the spiritual counsellor of Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. The following year, he left all previous posts and became the chaplain of the Loreto Convent in Balbriggan and the Balbriggan Renewal Group in Dublin, and spiritual advisor to the North Dublin Charismatic Movement until 1988.

In Ireland's Crashing Catholicism (2013), Kennedy offers three causes for the Church's declining power in Ireland:

"It may be that too many centuries of being dazzled by outside control have drowned the Patrician opening text of Ego Patricius, peccator. An obsequiousness towards being ruled from outside is perhaps at root. Obedience to mother, the matriarchal principle transferred to Mother Church and the diminishment of Father, is a third possibility. After all, Catholic iconography edits the male from its iconic artwork in favour of mother and son. Except for God many of our religious symbols in the west are fatherless. We might call this the Joseph syndrome."[4]

Since September 2017, Kennedy has been the pastor of Enniskerry,[5] holding the position of priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin.[6][7]

Kennedy subscribes to the psychoanalytic system of Lacanianism, believing in the importance of desire.[8]

In 2005, Kennedy explored transference, identification, and sublimations in his publication St. Teresa, Mysticism and That's Not It. He proposed that "all love is transference" (as regards to Mother Teresa's approach) and concluded that "[Jacques] Lacan is availing of what is not, namely, the limit of love and knowledge."[9]

Another 2005 publication, Joyce, The Castration Complex, and the Nom Du Pere, points to the theme of fatherhood as a key factor in the work of novelist James Joyce, "particularly in the important text of Family Complexes in the Formation of the Individual." In much the same way as transgenerational trauma, Kennedy writes that "[the coat of arms] can be seen as a form of indentation of generations upon the psyche of the next generation and for our purposes on James Joyce, writer, poet and son of artificer." This publication focused heavily on the psychoanalytic nature of Joyce's writings, particularly the Freudian castration complex and Lacanian symbolic order.[10]

As regards to the Freudian understanding of the symptom, it is Kennedy's strong-held belief, posited in his doctoral thesis, that this theory is derived from the unconscious. He has described it as "a text whose expression is the Symptom but behind which, if unravelled, like a knot of coagulated affect, arising from trauma, and, confected from the social cultural deposits, is an agreement between the Ego and the Id in a context, brought about through Repression."[11]

Between 1998 and 1999, Kennedy published three poetry books with Marmara Press: Leaves of Autumn: A New Poetry Collection 1988-1998 (1998), Berlin, Berlin (1999), The Poet's Tower & Love Poems (1999).[12][13][14][15]

In 1979, the first year of its running, Kennedy won the National Council Educational Award in Philosophy, issued by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council.

Kennedy is a member of several academic associations, including the European Association of Psychoanalysts (EAP), the Irish Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and the Association for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Ireland (APPI).[16] In August 2005, Kennedy became a registered practitioner with the Association of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Ireland; in February 2011, he became a registered practitioner with the Irish Council for Psychotherapy (ICP).

Kennedy is a Member of Poetry Ireland (MPI).

Since 1989, Kennedy has held the position of vice president at the Bracken Boxing Club. He is a member of the Leopardstown Club of Leopardstown Racecourse.

• Kennedy, Bernard (1 August 1998). Leaves of Autumn: A New Poetry Collection 1988-1998. Marmara Press. ISBN 978-0953480203.
• Kennedy, Bernard (1 April 1999). Berlin, Berlin. Marmara Press. ISBN 978-0953480227.
• Kennedy, Bernard (1 July 1999). The Poet's Tower & Love Poems. Marmara Press. ISBN 978-0953480210.

• Kennedy, Bernard (September 2001). "Maintenance or Mission? A Tale of Three Circles". The Furrow. 52 (11): 612–616. JSTOR 27664399.
• Kennedy, Bernard (September 2002). "Out of Our Depth? A Reflection on Paedophilia". The Furrow. 53 (9): 479–483. JSTOR 27664594.
• Kennedy, Bernard (Spring 2005). "St. Teresa, Mysticism and That's Not It – The Agalma of Homosexual and Hetrosexual Desire". The Letter. 33: 98–104.
• Kennedy, Bernard (Autumn 2005). "Joyce, The Castration Complex, and the Nom Du Pere". The Letter. 35: 50–58.
• Kennedy, Bernard (Spring 2006). "The Priesthood and Homosexuality: A Basis to Dialogue". The Furrow. 95 (377): 77–87. JSTOR 30095796.
• Kennedy, Bernard (April 2013). "Ireland's Crashing Catholicism". The Furrow. 64 (4): 236–241. JSTOR 24635608.
• Kennedy, Bernard (November 2016). "When It's Time - The Trouble with Waiting". Intercom. 29: 15.