John Alexius Bathersby (26 July 1936 – 9 March 2020) was an Australian bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
[1] From school he entered the Pius XII Provincial Seminary, Banyo, where he began his training for the priesthood and, on completion of those studies (1955–61), he was ordained a priest in his home parish of Stanthorpe by Bishop William Brennan on 30 June 1961.
In January 2001, Pope John Paul II appointed Bathersby as co-chair of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Working Group (IARCCUM).
However Kennedy's services were extremely popular attracting a very large congregation, many of whom felt otherwise alienated from the Catholic Church.
[9][10] In 2011, a feature documentary was made about Kennedy and the exiled community and their conflict with the Catholic Church, entitled The Trouble with St Mary's.