Expressed love through words and actions

PETER HARRIS June 27, 1928-November 12, 2021

Peter William Harris, a Victorian committed to caring and community work, began his professional in a Catholic ministry before a second career in social services.

In the early 1990s, he co-ordinated the nascent critical incident stress management service for the staff of Community Services Victoria (CSV), as the state social service department was then known, alongside a team of eminent psychologists specialising in trauma and post-traumatic stress.

The service, established in 1989 in recognition of the prevalence of stress and trauma relating to a wide range of work experiences at CSV, provided immediate support to staff in the form of debriefing as psychological first aid. Initially delivered by external psychologists, the need was so great that the program grew into a specially trained team of 30 CSV staff in regional teams, with 10 external clinicians responding to specialised needs.

The role of state co-ordinator involved oversight of the administrative processes of developing the regional teams of debriefers, sensitive management of incoming requests for sessions and the allocation of staff to provide the services. Peter would carefully follow up with them after sessions and ensure that they were not left with stresses of their own given that many of the events involved traumatic or tragic events.

Dr Rob Gordon, expert and advocate of psychological first aid in trauma response and recovery, was clinical director of the service for 19 years from its inception. He recalls Peter’s contribution in the first few years of the program as foundational in terms of establishing a culture within the department of supporting people who had been hurt by events in their workplace.

“He assisted at many debriefing sessions and provided valuable feedback that helped manage the service. I remember asking him how he achieved such a sensitive understanding of each person. He then let me know he had a background in the Church I saw he had a wide experience of the human condition. He used to provide information to new staff about the service at induction courses and on more than one occasion identified reactions in new staff to his presentation that led to a conversation identifying they were coming into the department carrying significant unresolved stress or trauma from a previous workplace. We were able to help those staff.”

Peter Harris.

Peter was born to Rose and Frank Harris. With his older brother Francis, they lived above the family owned butcher shop on Glenferrie Road, Malvern. When the boys were young, the family vehicle was a “fire-engine red” Harley-Davidson motorbike with side car. As a teenager, he rode it for meat deliveries and to attend weekend socials that would spark a lifelong devotion to music and dancing.

Peter entered the seminary at Corpus Christi College in Werribee in 1949 and was ordained in 1956. His ministry was served in Gippsland, with early years spent in the newly established parish of Newborough. In 1965, he was appointed parish priest of St Vincent’s Morwell East, a parish with no church and no presbytery, both of which he eventually built.

His years working in the communities of coalminers and electricity commission workers of the Latrobe Valley left him with a strong conviction to build a church for god’s people. He was inspired by the principles of Father Frederick Debuyst, advocating for community sized spaces in keeping with the scale and appearance of the surrounding houses. He travelled to the US and Japan for a study tour of small church development which informed the design process of St Vincent’s Church, whose community celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 2021.

Peter Harris at his ordination in 1956.

This period in Peter’s life brought an opportunity for love, marriage, and family life that he had longed for but suppressed for many years. In 1972, he married Carmel (nee Allen), a widow with five children whose first husband, Jim Gallagher, had died in 1967. They embarked on a rich and busy family life, moving from Morwell East to Melbourne where they had a daughter, bringing the household to eight.

Those who generously see the best in others tend to dream of a future that is full of possibility and with potential for change, and Peter always imagined a time when Catholic priests would be able to marry. The Vatican II reforms brought a brief hope that this would be possible, but it was not to be and the progress that Peter and many other priests of his generation had advocated for was rolled back. His own words give us insight into the feelings that defined a large part of his identity: “As a former priest one is not quite a layman. No matter what the dedication, skills, or aptitude for working with the people of God, the contributions of people in my circumstances are not required or permitted, in the view of the Holy See. The question has to be asked, where is the holy spirit in this kind of response?”

Confident in his decision to leave the active ministry and buoyed by the love and emotional sustenance of his new family, Peter embarked on the next phase of his life with determination, which he would need for the steep learning curve that awaited him as a father of six and a new career in community service.

Professionally, Peter struggled to find his footing, until he found his way into public service at the Department of Social Security and at Community Services Victoria. He managed a wide range of public service programs before the critical incident stress co-ordination role, including the Whitlam government’s Australian Assistance Plan in Melbourne’s outer-eastern region and the initial years of freedom of information during John Cain’s premiership.

Retirement to the Mornington Peninsula in the 1990s brought more opportunities for community participation through the Save Mornington Alliance and the 4M Network, advocating against over-development in a small and historic community. Many lasting friendships were formed during this time, as in every chapter of Peter’s life.

His greatest joys were to be found in spending time with Carmel and family. No venue with music was too small for him to grab Carmel’s hand for an expertly executed foxtrot or modern waltz. He became a dedicated and prolific memoirist in retirement and discovered a passion for the French game of petanque in his 70s. Playing pistes were created with the assistance of the Melbourne City Council, in the park opposite the apartment block where Peter and Carmel lived from 2017.

A loving and devoted husband to Carmel for 50 years, he was a cherished father, grandfather and great-grandfather who understood and embodied an ever-deepening love that he eloquently expressed through both words and actions.

Esther Harris is Peter Harris’ daughter.

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