BishopAccountability.org
	Australia: Archbishops" Chaplain behind Bars at Last By Amanda Gearing Virtue Online April 29, 2009 http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=10347 The sentencing of a self-confessed child sex offender and senior Brisbane Anglican priest Canon Barry Greaves in Brisbane District Court last Friday (April 24, 2009) is a significant event for many reasons and for many people. It is a significant event because Greaves was a priest at Boonah in the early 1980s when he committed the offences and because knowledge of his own sex offending against children failed to deter him from seeking and gaining high office in the Anglican Church. He accepted the position of being an Archbishop's chaplain to Brisbane Archbishop Dr Peter Hollingworth in 1999. He stayed on as an Archbishop's chaplain to the incoming Archbishop Dr Phillip Aspinall in 2002 and not even the disgrace of the sex scandal in the Brisbane Diocese resulted in a glimmer of guilt that maybe he was not an appropriate person to be providing pastoral care to other victims of sexual assault. Families of victims who were referred to Greaves for pastoral care are now flabbergasted by the double betrayal. "I went looking for comfort and now I discover I was confiding in a f***ing pedophile," one woman said. The depth of betrayal she and others feel now that Greaves has pleaded guilty to nine sex offences against children is obviously profound. If victims wanted to regain trust in the clergy when they sought help from Greaves, the chances of them having any confidence to try again after a second betrayal are pretty slim. Greaves' career in the church took him from St Francis College to ordination in 1962, curacies at All Saints Chermside and Christ Church Bundaberg, chaplain of St John's College at the University of Queensland, five years in the Bush Brotherhood of St Paul, headmaster at St Barnabas School in Ravenshoe in North Queensland, rector of All Saints Chermside and then rector of Christ Church Boonah (where he now admits offending against three altar boys in the early 1980s). Unsurprisingly, most of these roles provided Greaves with trusted access to children. During his time at Boonah, despite his criminal offences, Greaves accepted promotion to the position of regional dean of Ipswich, then residentiary canon at St John's Cathedral, rector at St Francis Nundah, area dean of Brisbane North East and finally Archbishop's chaplain from 1999 to 2003. He was awarded a life-time canonisation in 2003 with the title Canon Emeritus and permission to act as a priest after he retired in 2003. As well as seeking positions of power in the Diocese, Greaves also sought high office in the national Synod, the national governing body of the Anglican Church in Australia. A farewell motion at Synod in 2001 was presented by Archbishop Ian George (who was subsequently disgraced as Archbishop of Adelaide for his mishandling of child abuse cases ) thanking Greaves for his faithful service to the Synod, his unstinting commitment to excellence and the best interests of the Synod; his service as Clerical Secretary of General Synod since 1989, his industry and his meticulous exercise of that role; and his extraordinary knowledge of the legislation and procedures of the Synod, and his generous and gracious advice to many of its members over the years. For such a senior cleric to respond as he has, to the allegations in 2004 when his victims finally reported to police, and which Greaves knew to be true, adds further to his discredit. His response has been less than pious and not at all humble. Greaves' behaviour through the criminal justice system has added enormously to the struggle of his victims in pursuing justice. Greaves forced his victims to endure a police investigation, giving evidence in a committal hearing, a process which caused at least one of them to have nightmares for a year following his harrowing re-living of the depravity forced on him by Greaves. The ongoing impact on this victim, now a man aged in his 40s, is indeed dire. In addition, Greaves fought in preliminary hearings to have separate trials for each of the victims, in the hope of avoiding conviction. He was willing to string out the legal proceedings, adding vastly to his legal costs, in order to try to maintain the sham of respectability to which he had clung for almost 30 years. Had Greaves been a Christian in the biblical sense of the word, or even a decent human being, he would have taken responsibility for his crimes almost 30 years ago. Sincere Christians in the Anglican Communion are justifiably thrown off balance when they realise a church powerbroker they trusted as a man of God, has betrayed them all, and is just a criminal. The public is justifiably sceptical of the church's claims over several years now that it has overcome it's failures to protect children. Hopefully the Diocese will promptly depose Greaves from Holy Orders on the basis of his criminal conviction. Greaves' late stage guilty plea is evidence that the systemic rot in the Diocese has reached to the highest echelons of the Anglican Church. Greaves' jailing is a significant event for the victims of his crimes who have lived with the sordid memories of being violated by a priest in whom they and their parents trusted. These boys, now grown men possibly with children of their own, have taken a most difficult and tortuous journey to confront the past, to recount in clinical detail to the police, the offences committed against them, and have endured the painfully slow judicial process of investigation, remand mentions, committal proceedings and trial preparation. Many times they would have been tempted to give up in the face of the overwhelming social status and power of the aggressor. Many times they would have questioned whether the pain they were enduring was worthwhile in order to fulfil their social duty of reporting criminal behaviour to the police. To their credit they decided to keep going, to do what they knew they needed to do despite the emotional pain, to stand up for their own integrity, to stand up for the truth and to do all they could to protect children from Greaves. It is difficult to imagine the pressure the victims felt when Greaves was under police investigation and was allowed by the Brisbane Diocese to openly attend Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Fortitude Valley, presenting Bible readings during services and interacting with children. Bishop John Parkes declared to the media in 2008 that alleged pedophile priests, specifically including Greaves, could not be stopped from interacting with children as part of the congregation nor from participating in church duties open to any lay person - such as singing in a choir, Bible readings or being part of the cleaning roster. "Until they were convicted, they were entitled to be considered innocent until proven guilty," Bishop Parkes was quoted to have said at the time. Given Greaves' guilty plea on Friday, to nine counts of sex offences against children, this policy needs a swift rethink and action to protect children as a first priority under the precautionary principle. Greaves was sentenced to three years' jail, of which he will serve nine months before stepping out of jail on a suspended sentence with no parole supervision. He will not be in jail long enough to attend a sex offender rehabilitation program. On the positive side, Greaves' removal from the top of the Diocese to jail may result in a new stream of victims of other sex offending clergy now finding the courage to step forward to the police. If this eventuates, then the three brave victims who gave evidence against Greaves will have the added comfort that they have helped set other survivors free from the same lonely, humiliating hell they have lived through themselves since the offences. If these three victims take civil action against the Brisbane Diocese for failing in its duty of care, it will be interesting to see whether the Diocese will continue to use the Statute of Limitations to prevent them seeking compensation for their suffering. To date the Diocese has chosen to use legal defences barring victims from even bringing a compensation action if they are older than 21. Greaves' guilty plea could become a material fact of a decisive character which enables them to seek compensation despite the time delay, so long as they file their claim within one year and are prepared to face court costs of around $30,000. For these men to have to fight further court battles would add further unnecessary struggle which surely Anglican parishioners would not condone. It would be a refreshing change for the better if the Brisbane Diocese recognised the sheer courage of the three men, apologised for their suffering, and made significant compensation payments to each of them for their willingness to spend five years assisting the authorities in the administration of justice.
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