New Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Jeremy Greaves breaks decades of silence on being sexually abused

In an exclusive interview, the new Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane reveals that he was sexually abused as a child, and how this inspired him to do right by victims.

New Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Jeremy Greaves at St John’s Cathedral. Picture: Glenn Hunt

It took Jeremy Greaves three decades to come to grips with what happened to him as a teenager and only now, the day of his installation as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, is he willing to speak openly about the sexual abuse he endured.

The 54-year-old father of three wants to share his story so that other survivors will know his heart is in the right place, that he is serious when he promises to do better by those who have suffered at the hands of predatory priests and church workers.

Jeremy Greaves will be installed as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane at St John's Cathedral on Saturday. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Archbishop Greaves was “14 or 15” when he was sexually assaulted by a scouts leader in Adelaide in the early 1980s and kept the terrible secret to himself until about eight years ago, when he finally went to South Australian police.

He’s not yet ready to publicly detail the abuse. But it turned out his accused assailant was a convicted sex offender who allegedly preyed on other children around the time he entered the paedophile’s orbit.

“I think the royal commission (into institutional child sexual abuse) suggested that it often takes 20 or 30 years for people to disclose, and that was certainly my experience,” Archbishop Greaves told The Weekend Australian.

“Over the last 10 years or so I’ve done the work that I’ve needed to do to understand all of that.”

A mixture of “shame, embarrassment and bewilderment” made him keep the harrowing experience to himself for all those years, he said. Archbishop Greaves could not bring himself to confide in anyone, not even his wife, Josie, until the dam broke.

Happy family: From left, Kate, 21, wife Josie, Hannah, 19, Archbishop Greaves and Thomas, 17.

After telling his family, he called in the police.

“It was quite a long process of working out that this was actually abuse, and my primary concern was: were there others?” he said.

“And subsequently I have discovered there were, before me and after me. So my primary reason for going to the police was about making sure there were no others after that time.”

As head of the sprawling Brisbane Diocese, Archbishop Greaves is one of five “metropolitans” who sit atop the Anglican Church of Australia and provide candidates to be primate, its elected leader. More than three million people identify as being Anglican in this country.

He follows in the footsteps of former primate Phillip Aspinall and Peter Hollingworth, central figures in the decades-long reckoning over child sexual abuse in the churches. Dr Hollingworth was forced to quit as governor-general in 2003 in the face of accusations that he had put the Anglican Church first in dealing with survivors while archbishop of Brisbane, compounded by a disastrous attempt to defend his record from Yarralumla.

Dr Aspinall was still answering questions about Hollingworth-era cases when he appeared at the royal commission in 2015. A bitter internal dispute relating to one of them, claimed to involve fallout from the crimes committed against at least 140 children at the Anglican St Paul’s School in Brisbane’s north between 1981 and 1997 by student counsellor Kevin Lynch and teacher Gregory Robert Knight, will be waiting on Archbishop Greaves’ desk when he sets to work on Monday.

He immediately put his mark on the role by opting to be installed rather than “enthroned” as archbishop at Saturday’s pomp-filled service in St John’s Cathedral.

Drawing on his experience, he said he hoped to speed compensation in sexual abuse cases and make the church’s redress system more “victim-survivor centric”. Protracted processes were “incredibly hurtful and damaging”, he said.

“We are moving into a different place,” Archbishop Greaves said. “The primary concern for me, it seems, would be that we do things quicker.

“I had the experience of being a victim of child sexual abuse, not in the church … and my experience of dealing with the scouts was they were terrific.

“I’ve now spent a number of years dealing with the police and revisiting stuff, and while I have done a lot of work to come to terms with and work out what all that means for me, I can absolutely see for some people that a drawn-out process would be incredibly hurtful and damaging.”

Suffering sexual abuse provided him with “a little bit of insight” and fired his determination to make a difference as a church leader.

“You know, while my story is not anyone else’s story. hopefully it brings me a bit of understanding or a bit of sensitivity or compassion,” he said.

After making a statement to police, Archbishop Greaves entered the National Redress Scheme, established in the wake of the 2013-17 royal commission. He received a financial settlement.

Scouts SA said in a statement it had in the past “failed some of our members”, but there was zero tolerance for any form of child abuse or endangerment.

“We’re not in a position to name the perpetrator,” the organisation said of the archbishop’s case. “To do so may compromise the privacy of any other victims.”

South Australian police declined to comment.

While Archbishop Greaves kept the abuse secret until he was well into his 40s, he said it had had a telling impact on him as a teenager and young man. His school grades plunged in the aftermath of the abuse; he started a science degree but dropped out of university to backpack around Europe.

Entering the priesthood was the furthest thing from his mind.

Then, about 10 years ago, he “joined the dots” and began to come to terms with the ordeal he had undergone. “I’ve done a lot of work with good professional advisers, a spiritual director, and I think I now understand its impact on me,” he said.

In comments that will anger conservative Anglicans, Archbishop Greaves said he was prepared to green-light same-sex marriage blessing ceremonies and ordain gay priests.The Brisbane Diocese, the church’s third largest with 138 parishes spanning a vast catchment that reaches north past Bundaberg and south to the NSW border, is now the centre of a split between its progressive and conservative, evangelical wings.

The breakaway Diocese of the Southern Cross, backed by the powerful and conservative-dominated Sydney Diocese, had started at least six chapters in southeast Queensland, Archbishop Greaves said.