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Since reading Sue Williams’ biography, Father Bob – The Larrikin Priest, I have taken the time to read a few reviews.
I began to wonder if the people who wrote those reviews of Williams’ book, had read the same book I had just read! To me, this is about the life of a sincere and hardworking Good Samaritan who may have been a larrikin, but that moniker alludes to the very least of what drives this priest. Maybe ‘The Rebel Priest’ would have been more appropriate? From the very beginning it appeared that the Catholic Church was not a fan of Father Bob Maguire. The driving force behind Father Bob’s work with his many charities was the welfare of the hundreds of street kids in and around Melbourne during Father Bob’s tenure as parish priest of South Melbourne’s St Peter’s and St Paul’s Catholic Church.
Throughout the book, associates and others who worked with Father Bob over decades describe him as having a razor sharp wit and an irrepressible sense of humour. These attributes surfaced frequently during his sermons from the pulpit, at weddings, funerals and baptisms …still his Sunday services were always well attended. There were also many people who disliked the priest and some of his methods, but most could see that he genuinely cared and worked tirelessly raising money for his various charities and fighting for the safety and wellbeing of homeless children.
Bob Maguire’s own childhood was troubled ; his father was an alcoholic who spent most of any wages he earned on alcohol. The young Bobby often saw his mother being beaten by his father, and there was very little food to feed herself and her children. On several occasions the family were evicted from their rental accommodation because they couldn’t afford to pay the rent. There were many immigrant families in Melbourne at the time and most were struggling to survive.
There is so much life lived by this humble priest, readers will have to read his biography to gain an insight into this incredible man and what he has achieved in his lifetime. He did have a wicked sense of humour, but I can see how it may have helped to ameliorate the heartbreak he witnessed every day; children on the streets selling their bodies to paedophiles so they could buy food and drugs. Most had run away from home to escape violence, sexual abuse and extreme poverty. Death by suicide was not uncommon. As children often said to him, “You helped us and didn’t want anything in return.” He has worked in Melbourne since the 1960s and is still working with the poor and homeless in 2020.
Father Bob was constantly on the move working with high profile celebrities, business and sports men and women, to raise funds for his Father Bob Maguire Foundation and his other charities, and humour was a large part of his repertoire, some being of the view that he would have been a great stand-up comic. He also used shock tactics, such as jokes about his Catholic religion, to get his audiences’ attention, and then motivated, to part with their money. As he often remarked, he was used to begging for money and food. His jokes did not endear him to the Catholic hierarchy in Australia. Here is a description in the book of one of his irreverent comedic appearances:
“He dressed up as a nun and introduced himself as Sister Roberta… telling his audience that people were sometimes more willing to donate to causes introduced by women, because people assumed they’d be speaking from the heart rather than by men who spoke from the head. Other churches have women priests, but this is an opportunity to have a male nun. This goes to show how far I have to go to raise awareness and money for the Father Bob Maguire Foundation …I’m seventy-four, fat and bald but my face is my fortune, which is why I’m broke!”
When he was finally given his own permanent parish in South Melbourne, Father Bob decided very early on that he wanted to go out into the community and help homeless children because they certainly wouldn’t be coming into his church for help. However, his unorthodox methods were not approved of by Archbishop Denis Hart or George Pell, and eventually they would evict him from his parish presbytery in the grounds of St Peter’s and Paul’s Parish Church in his mid seventies. They threw him onto the streets of Melbourne to join the very homeless people he had worked so hard for, and was still helping. Their excuse was that he was at retirement age for all priests, but this proved to be untrue, as many priests are permitted to work beyond the age of 75 years if they were able to. There is a dire shortage of Catholic priests across the world. George Pell the ‘arch conservative’ opined that Catholicism in Australia had become “too lax” and he had been working to keep the Catholic Church in Australia in the depths of conservatism whereas Father Bob was a great supporter of Vatican ll and his parish grew exponentially in response when he made changes to the celebration of the Mass, such as facing the congregation, and other modernisations. Denis Hart and George Pell had Father Bob in their sights … they wanted him gone from the South Melbourne parish, the only secure home he had ever known. The conservative view was that prayer and blessings were more beneficial to the Church and its coffers than raising money to help the homeless and the poor.
He was evicted with very little notice on 1 February, 2012, although he had known for some time that he was in the sights of ‘enemies’ who sought to destroy his lifetime’s work. His list of detractors and ‘haters’ was headed by Tony Abbott, Derryn Hinch, Denis Hart and George Pell. In a disgusting breach of trust, Derryn Hinch had earlier invited Father Bob onto his radio show and immediately attacked him, accusing him of stealing money from his trust funds for the poor and homeless. The priest had believed that Hinch would help him to raise funds for his Foundation and was devastated at the accusations; he barely knew what to say or how to respond.
Readers will be appalled like I was at the treatment Father Bob received by an extremely wealthy Church whose hierarchy was not pleased that Father Bob was working on the streets of Melbourne and raising huge amounts of money for the homeless and mentally ill instead of the Catholic Church! In the end the years of Hinch’s “money laundering’ and “embezzlement” attacks on Father Bob and his charities were proven to be groundless. Those who worked with Father Bob knew the accusations were vexatious. Even so, Derryn Hinch told his radio listeners that “Bob Maguire made a pact with the devil.” Most readers will know by now that Derryn Hinch will do anything to attract attention to himself; over the years he has proved to be a shallow man with absolutely no integrity whatsoever!
The ‘Night of the Long Knives’ as Father Bob and his supporters called it, was the culmination of a concerted effort to get rid of Father Bob, despite the outrage of his supporters, associates, benefactors, and his South Melbourne parishioners. Archbishop Denis Hart “… in a highly unusual move, completely without precedent, issued a damning statement about Father Bob direct to the press. The first the priest knew about it was when he started receiving calls from journalists to gauge his reaction.” Is it any wonder the Catholic Church today is drowning in global scandals from money laundering, bank fraud, embezzlement and of course, the sexual abuse of thousands of children worldwide?
I think the corruption and sheer hypocrisy of Catholicism was made crystal clear by this: Over the years, George Pell has been accused by several boys of historical sexual abuse of which there is not enough evidence, apparently, to convict him, but one thing is very clear: The Royal Commission into Institutional Sexual Abuse of Children, found it was implausible that George Pell didn’t know that hundreds of children were being sexually abused by Catholic clergy on his watch. Yet George Pell was recently invited to the Vatican and given the red carpet treatment, while the Church saw fit to evict Father Bob from his beloved parish. The irony is deep and disturbing. Denis Hart refuses to allow his priests to inform police of the sexual abuse of children confessed within the sanctity of the confessional!
After his eviction Father Bob became extremely ill with a life- threatening condition and had to stay in a rehab hospital for months. The illness was brought on by his extreme distress at being ‘sacked’ by his Church. But Father Bob had huge support within his community and outside it. The Victorian Electoral Trades Union gave him a tiny back room of an office whose rent had been paid for the following three years. There Father Bob had a single bed, a rug on the floor for his beloved dog to sleep on and not much else. Later his supporters and associates, which included men and women he had helped years before when they were homeless, starving children, and who were now thriving, helped to set him up with a computer and he now communicates with his parishioners via the internet…he also has many followers on social media.
One of the biggest travesties and injustices in the whole saga of the harassment of Father Bob by the Catholic Church and the Vatican by the way, is that several paedophile priests and brothers in Australia, once they were released from prison, were set up in accommodation and cared for by the Church, for the rest of their miserable lives. One of those who was never convicted in a court, because the Catholic Church, including George Pell, refused to take legal action against him, was Father Kevin O’Donnell who raped the two daughters of Anthony and Chrissie Foster when they were five years old, including many other children, on the grounds of a Catholic School. O’Donnell spent his last years well cared for and supported by his church, and the flat he was provided with had daily visits by young boys, and although complaints were made to the Church, again no action was taken.
Read the full post on my blog HERE about the case of Father Kevin O’Donnell:
Just a note here about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic Clergy, and how much it affected Father Bob. He couldn’t fathom why the Church did not turn over those priests and brothers who sexually abused children. So when a young man came to see him at his presbytery to tell him he and other boys had been sexually abused by a man they called ‘Big George’ aka George Pell, father Bob immediately contacted someone he knew connected with Victoria Police and informed them of the allegation. He befriended and supported the man who later became one of his loyal volunteers. Father Bob believes in hindsight that this made George Pell a dangerous enemy and set him on his course to undermine Father Bob and his Foundation. However, although George Pell and Denis Hart finally rid themselves of this ‘annoying’ priest, they could not destroy him or his charities; he was loved too much and there were now hundreds of grown men and women who remembered his love and kindness over past decades. He also was a talented entrepreneur who was able to convert dormant, empty Church properties into sports facilities, a boxing club, day care centre, produce store, affordable office space and of course cheap housing for the poor and homeless, space for community groups and a children’s playground. The income in turn helped him to finance his charities.
At least the secular sector of Australia has seen fit to bestow many awards upon Father Bob over the years. This is a biography about a truly remarkable, and humble man who is quick to remind all and sundry, that his life is guided by the teachings of Jesus, not of Catholicism.
anne frandi-coory 