Sydney
27 July 2003

Home
Archive
Subscribe
Links
Contact

Centre of it all ...

Two new bishops for Sydney

New bishops at cutting edge of Church

From sailor to bishop

Neocatechumenate priest for Redfern

Pokie tax threatens club aid to Church

Honours to chapel couple

Origin star, author, surf champ lend hand to Youth Off Streets

Four-day visit to Slovakia

Sydney group breaks Holy Land ‘drought’

Pope gives $10m aid

Unusable gifts cost Vinnies $½m a year

Specs to aid St Lucy’s

Finnish choir at St Francis

Editorial: Themes of ministry

Letters: Richness of our faith

Conversation: Jim Grainger, director of Centacare Broken Bay - ‘Following Christ’s ideals’ of caring

Three years on, Gershom pulls out all the stops ...

Father of four ‘honoured’ by L’Arche appointment

Checking to see if Mr Right’s in site

Mary MacKillop focus of digital learning aid

Franciscan’s journey in a new era of pilgrimage

World Youth Day on web

Blessing at the centre of it all

Conversation: Jim Grainger, director of Centacare Broken Bay - ‘Following Christ’s ideals’ of caring

By Damir Govorcin

“Following Christ’s ideals of helping the disadvantaged in our community” - that’s the challenge Jim Grainger has set himself in his 15 years as director of Centacare Broken Bay.

It has enabled him to reinvent himself after leaving the priesthood because of a breakdown.

“Working with Centacare allows me to make a significant contribution to the Church community,” he said.

[Centacare is the welfare organisation for the Catholic Church.]

Jim’s feeling for community goes back to his childhood as one of a family of five in Lismore, a “warm country parish with enormous life” which sparked his interest in joining the priesthood.

His heroes then and later, as a teenager, in Sydney were St Marcellin Champagnat and St John Bosco, men of faith who made a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people.

Jim was ordained in 1965 and spent 14 years as an assistant priest, serving parishes at Pymble, St Mary’s and Forest Lodge.

“As a priest, I was always looking for ways of developing community within the parish,” he said. “I saw my role in the Church as offering leadership of service.

“I had an enormous amount of respect for the ordinary Catholic families who lived their faith within the parish community.”

He became well known for his work with secondary school students, youth groups and young adults.

However, his heavy workload led to a breakdown.

“I became so overwhelmed by the sadness and despair of so many people I was working with,” he said. “I was trying to be Christ, instead of imitating him.

“I also had some growing up to do as a person. I didn’t want to become withdrawn and angry.

“When I left the priesthood, I thought I was an enormous failure … I thought I had let people down.”

He left the priesthood in 1979 and turned to study, culminating in an honours degree in psychology at the University of NSW to accompany the licentiate and baccalaureate in theology from his seminary days.

Even in study his focus was on community - community psychology.

Jim supported himself by cleaning pubs and painting houses.

After graduating, he worked for three years in the Premier’s Department as a research officer in the field of Ageing and Disability.

In 1984, he married Mary, a nurse educator, and the couple have an 18-year-old son, Paul.

The family are active members of St Michael’s parish, Meadowbank.

“Mary and I share a deep commitment to the Church and she gives me the support I need with my work,” he said.

“Having a teenage son allows me to stay in touch with what’s happening with today’s youth.”

During his years in the priesthood, Jim had gained the support of a number of clergy who were later to become senior priests in the Broken Bay Diocese.

So when Centacare Broken Bay was projected into the new diocese in 1987, Jim accepted the position as director, which he took on the following year.

He was concerned, though, at whether Catholics would accept a former priest as a leader of a diocesan agency which was headed by priests in most other dioceses.

The bishop of the new diocese, Bishop Patrick Murphy, obviously thought that this wasn’t a major problem, and Jim believed that he had support from within the diocese, because of his youth work and years working with senior priests.

“In a funny sort of way I think I had allowed the clergy to accept me as someone who had been through a fair bit of strife,” he said. “They knew I had been a high-flyer, who had a breakdown.

“In the early years people were still asking me if I was feeling better.

“It was a very difficult transition for the Church to accept guys who had left. But there were links that enabled the diocese to accept me and employ me.”

By the mid 1990s, Centacare Broken Bay was well established and was providing a range of services for families, women, youth and the unemployed.

It grew over the next decade from a small group of counsellors in one office to a network of more than 40 employees across the diocese.

In November, Centacare will celebrate 15 years in the Broken Bay diocese by holding its inaugural Who Cares Ball in Manly.

The aim is to lift the profile of Centacare in the diocese and raise some much needed funds for assisting families and individuals in need of professional services.

For more information call 9473 4511.