An address by Archbishop Jeremy Greaves to Brisbane Pride Festival 2024.
It’s wonderful to be with you as a part of the Pride Festival and I’d like to thank the Festival Committee for offering this time for me to let you know about some of the work that has been going on in the Anglican Church Southern Queensland for the last two years.
We are acutely aware that attitudes and practices within the church have been and continue to be hurtful and harmful to rainbow people of faith and the broader rainbow community.
These things have hurt LGBTIQA+ people and their loved ones, undermined the ability of rainbow people of faith to participate fully in the life of the church, and understandably, broken the trust of gender and sexuality-diverse people in the church and community.
Two years ago, the Anglican church in Southern Queensland resolved to do better.
In 2022 we agreed that an apology was the first step in that commitment to change and a listening process was begun so that LGBTIQA+ people could safely share their experiences of the church and the impacts of these experiences on them and their families. These stories informed and shaped the apology to the rainbow community by the Anglican Church , which was overwhelmingly endorsed by representatives from every part of the Anglican Church in Southern Queensland.
We are incredibly grateful for the honesty, courage and trust of those who spoke to us, and for their assistance in finding the right words for a meaningful apology. Stories were shared with grace and generosity and my hope is that the final form of the apology honours those who chose to tell their stories. I hope that in some way the apology begins to attend to the needs of those who have been hurt and just as importantly expresses our clear intention to live differently in the future.
In all of this, I am very mindful that an apology is just one step on a much longer journey of healing – it does not end the process we have started. The work, we must do, to build some trust and credibility is to live into the apology in our churches, schools and other agencies: this will mean changes to behaviours, language and policies among other things. I know that we have much work to do.
It also means recognizing and celebrating the fact that there are many LGBTIQA+ people within our Diocesan family – in our pews, our schools and care agencies – leading and serving, teaching and ministering among us – to them I say, we value your presence, we celebrate your gifts, and we respect your lives.
Sadly there are many more LGBTIQA+ people of faith for whom the church has not been a safe place. We are sorry for the hurt you have experienced in large and small ways because of people or structures or behaviours within the church.
I am also conscious of the difficulty of delivering these words with appropriate sensitivity and in an appropriate setting, respecting that not everyone will wish to hear them now and understanding that some will not wish to hear them at all.
So for those who would like to hear the apology, tomorrow night we will offer the words of apology in full at a service of evensong, 6pm at St John’s Cathedral which will also be live-streamed on the Cathedral YouTube channel. Everyone is welcome. You can also find the words of the apology and more information at the Cathedral stall in the festival grounds at Musgrave Park where you can also meet Rev’d Selina McMahon, our LGBTIQA+ outreach officer.
Thank you again for giving me this space. Thank you for standing up to be counted. Thank you for all that you are doing to make the world a safer place for all people.
Happy Pride!!