Dr Cleary bows out to music, praise and a cry for justice

by Mark Brolly

Canon Dr Ray Cleary AM took his leave after 10 years as Chief Executive Officer of Anglicare Victoria in a farewell Eucharist at St Paul's Cathedral on 20 June. But as he did so, he shared the acclaim with a handful of Anglicare's 2000 volunteers, savoured the aural beauty of the Anglicare Victoria Choir and issued a clarion call for social justice.

Dr Cleary is to be succeeded as CEO by Mr Paul McDonald, a veteran of the community and public sectors, this month.

Archbishop Freier praised Dr Cleary's achievement in building a common sense of mission and ministry at Anglicare so soon after it was formed from the amalgamation of three agencies - the Mission of St James and St John, St John's Homes for Boys and Girls and the Mission to Streets and Lanes - in 1997. Dr Freier also said Dr Cleary had appropriated a corporate-sounding role of CEO as a ministry of the Church. And the Archbishop said Dr Cleary had been "unfailingly generous" in his contribution to the Diocese of Melbourne, the national Church and internationally.

The Chairman of Anglicare Victoria, Mr Damian Neylon, said Dr Cleary had devoted almost 42 years of full-time employment to the welfare sector and had directed a significant expansion in the work of the agency. But his ability to inspire other people had been his most important contribution.

Dr Cleary named Martin Luther King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as inspirations for his ministry, along with Anglicare's staff and volunteers, and said compassion, service and social action were at the heart of the agency's work.

"They are words central to Anglicare Victoria's work, past present and future," Dr Cleary said. "They are central to the message of the Gospel. They are words which remind us that our salvation, our redemption, remains broken and diminished when our brothers and sisters are exploited, abused, forgotten or victimised. We cannot ignore or forget our responsibility to the other."

Dr Cleary admitted that Luke was his favourite Gospel. "I like his earthiness and candour as he writes of Jesus Christ from his experience as a pastor of an eclectic community, not unlike those of us gathered here tonight, I suspect - believers, agnostics, sceptics and seekers."

He said we lived in a world of constant transition and unease with itself, in which some people sought a romantic view of the past while enjoying the privilege of the present.

"As I thought and reflected on tonight's Gospel story, I thought how I have changed, how my approach to Scripture and ministry have changed," Dr Cleary said. "I do not identify with the God Richard Dawkins speaks about, nor the judgemental or punitive God out to pay back for my mistakes, nor a moralising God which we so often speak or hear about. Instead for me, belief in God is a liberating and enriching experience testified and present in the person of Jesus, and those of us who confess faith are called to embrace and to work with all men and women of good will... I have sought to bring to my ministry dimensions and expressions of the divine in today's world which goes beyond the clichés, or religious language but rather to the heart of God as compassion, justice, mercy and redemption."

Anglicare's choir sang a mix of traditional and more modern sacred, inspiring and reflective songs, including Zulu and Gaelic music.

The service included Anglicare Victoria's annual Chairman's Volunteer Awards, in which 14 people from Melbourne, Wangaratta, Gippsland and the Yarra Ranges were honoured by Archbishop Freier and Mr Neylon. They included Nadine and Speros Coutsouvelis, who in their 30-year marriage have adopted seven children and fostered more than 200 others through Anglicare's Foster Care Program in Yarraville.