Father Bob

by Sue Williams

  In 1993, however, Father Bob was to get some relief from the mire. Kiss was sent to jail for seven years for theft and fraud, and all the investigations cleared Father Bob of any wrongdoing. Detective Chief Inspector Robert Michell of the Major Fraud Group of the Victorian Police, a man later to be appointed chief investigator of the Police Integrity Commission, wrote Archbishop Frank Little a letter saying all the allegations ‘have been investigated and found to be entirely without substance’.

  It was the complete exoneration Father Bob had hoped for, but he wondered whether that would be enough to stop Derryn Hinch’s attacks. He suspected it might not.

  It was another era of great change in Father Bob’s parish. The nature of the suburb, now united with St Kilda and Port Melbourne to form Port Phillip city – a merger Father Bob had fought unsuccessfully against side-by-side with the locals – was undergoing a steady transformation. The number of children enrolled in the four local Catholic schools had been dropping steadily, so Father Bob masterminded the amalgamation of the four unviable schools in the parishes of South Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Middle Park and West St Kilda into one regional primary school, Galilee, on the site of the former St Peter and Paul’s School. ‘That was a big achievement,’ says Father Ernie Smith, in neighbouring St Kilda. Father Smith had established the enormously successful Sacred Heart Mission, looking after people in need, but leaving the street kids to Open Family. ‘There’d been lots of regional secondary schools, but no regional primary. It was a big step forward for Catholic education.’ Father Bob was also put in charge of bringing together the different parishes in the region, including Fitzroy, Collingwood, East Melbourne, Richmond and South Yarra, as one ‘deanery’ to help in the sharing of resources.

  Towards the end of the 1980s, South Melbourne had experienced one of the city’s biggest waves of gentrification and that trend was gaining momentum all the time. Newcomers to the area were renovating a lot of the older houses and real estate prices were rising exponentially. South Melbourne, with its market and growing number of cafes and restaurants, as well as its proximity to the CBD, was now considered a much more desirable place to live. ‘It became a tale of two cities, the poor living side-by-side with the rich,’ says Father Bob. But the influx of new people, often with money, time and a willingness to lend a hand to those less fortunate, gave Father Bob fresh impetus to introduce new programs, and expand the ones he had. Under Nathan Stirling, Open Family Australia was thriving, it was more organised and had even started applying for government grants, with the priest having fans on all sides of politics.

  Brian Loughnane, a South Melbourne local and now the federal director of the Liberal Party of Australia, was back then the chief of staff to the Victorian Minister for Youth Affairs Vin Heffernan, who’d been awarded an Order of Australia for his work helping disadvantaged and homeless children. ‘Vin was great mates with Bob and he had a great empathy with the very practical and outcomes-focused work Bob was doing,’ he says. ‘There was a lot of resistance to Open Family within parts of the government bureaucracy, but we saw the value in what he was doing and were able to help and be supportive financially with grants and things like that.’

  That kind of assistance helped Open Family recruit more outreach workers to look after street kids over a wider swathe of Melbourne, and now there was also a growing band of volunteers at the ready, both new hands and old. ‘There were now two sides to South Melbourne,’ says Sister Catherine Flynn, one of the Faithful Companions of Jesus congregation, who approached Father Bob asking if they could help him in 1994. ‘There were the poor, but also a lot of the volunteers were fairly well-heeled people who wanted to give, people of money and influence. Father Bob attracted those kinds of people as well as the down-and-outs.’

  Mem River was meanwhile proving a huge asset to Father Bob’s work with kids on the streets. While he’d managed to forge a good career for himself as a filmmaker, producing and directing documentaries, as well as recording soundtracks, he was also keen to help others in need. Just as Father Bob had helped him years before, he was determined to pass on the favour and took on an old Christian Brothers house and converted it into a refuge, with a big games zone and youngsters attending the school next door.

  One of his toughest residents was a young deaf boy who’d been placed there as a last resort by the courts. He started off angry and violent, throwing things off the balcony and kicking over the TV. ‘But I tried to communicate with him and learnt sign language,’ says Mem. ‘Then I could interpret for him with others too. I think when he realised we cared, he was fine. He moved on finally and is now working as a youth councillor for deaf people. He was a real success story.’

  Two other new projects, the Parish Open House and the Parish House of Hospitality, offered assistance to underprivileged residents. Local pensioner Maureen Johnston was a mainstay of both. A battler herself, with four children, several grandchildren and a sixteen-year-old grandson she’d been the primary carer of for the past six years, she’d been a recipient of Father Bob’s generosity in the past, and wanted to do something for others. She started off on the food bus with Henry Nissen as it drove around Port Melbourne, St Kilda and the Flinders Street Station areas, preparing and handing out sandwiches and hot coffee. She proved a natural at interacting with those who came for a bite of food and to see a friendly face.

  She wanted to do more, however. She turned up another day with six hotdogs and four cheese sandwiches – all she could afford to make – and, together with another volunteer, Henri Ser, took a second bus on another beat to a public housing area of Port Melbourne. ‘It started slowly but we went out the next week and there were more people,’ says Henri. ‘Then there were more, so we started to get more money, thanks to Bob, and we bought more food, and that food van service has grown ever since.’

  Yet Maureen still wasn’t satisfied with that and, in 1994, volunteered four days a week to provide food for people from the back of the church. It began with unpacking and handing out food from Foodbank Victoria, a newly formed charity gathering food donations, including end-of-line, mislabelled and overrun stock, and redistributing it to people experiencing hardship. Visitors could also ask advice on where to find help on housing, clothing, travel tickets and all their general welfare needs over coffee with friendly volunteers. But in Maureen’s conversations with recipients, she realised that many were also in need of a regular, healthy cooked meal. So she then embarked on a program of providing free evening meals two days a week, and breakfasts on a third day. Very soon, up to eighty people were turning up at each mealtime.

  Her dedication was astonishing. Even though she was a pensioner, was terribly stooped and had chronic health problems, she’d insist on walking to the supermarket herself every day to pick up supplies in her trolley. ‘The success of the project relied entirely on Maureen’s confidence, unselfish dedication and genuine care for the South Melbourne marginalised,’ says Father Bob, who later pressed for her to receive a Medal of the Order of Australia. When he wasn’t successful, he presented her with an award of his own creation, the ‘order of St Peter and St Paul’ honours system. ‘Maureen not only provided people with food and an opportunity to interact with others, but she encouraged them to participate in the preparation, cooking and cleaning up, enhancing their self-esteem and providing them with a sense of purpose, belonging and pride. She had a passion for helping people get their lives back in order with encouragement and without judgement.’

  But back in the day, one of the most dedicated supporters of the program was Sister Catherine. She’d begun helping in the school, but then went to the back of the church to assist with the food. She found many of the recipients had tragic stories, family problems and psychological issues. ‘Many would have been brilliant people but their brains had been affected by their past, or alcohol, or the way they were living,’ she says. ‘Some were almost ashamed to have to come and ask for help, but others were shameless. Bob had such vision with many of those in
itiatives. He’d give you a lot of liberty and things could go wrong and some people often wanted more structure, but he had so many great ideas, like food programs and providing scholarships for those in trouble. He could often be cranky but he’d drop by and could talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry, but also those much higher up the line. That’s a real talent. Although he didn’t fit with the establishment, I really believe in him.’

  Many were feeling much the same way. They saw Father Bob as a real honest-to-goodness knockabout bloke, the kind of old-fashioned ideal of a priest who could be a best mate to everyone and anyone. He was known for giving away his jacket to anyone who said they were cold, and once famously turned up at the presbytery without his shoes after going out for a walk and handing them over to a boy who was going for a job and needed to look smart for the interview. A group once had a collection to raise the money for his fare back to Scotland to see his family; he ended up giving the money to ‘a few people who needed it more than me’. His cousins back there were sad that he never came over to visit, but they understood. ‘We would have loved to have seen our hero, and he’s never had a holiday, but he gave away the money to more deserving causes,’ says Frank Maguire. ‘He’s a gentle man who cares.’

  Another time, he appeared in a rather fine leather coat, donated that morning to the presbytery by the widow of a man who’d just died. Yet he also had a sharp brain and a fiendish intellect, and read constantly to improve his mind. As well as reading his Bible every day – ‘pretty much an occupational hazard,’ he shrugs – he’d usually spend his evenings alone with a book, about theology, history, philosophy, sociology, or even a mainstream bestseller, just so he could keep in touch with the social mores. His schooling hadn’t been the best, but he set about educating himself instead on the kinds of subjects he felt mattered.

  ‘Whenever you’re in doubt, go back to history,’ he’d often advise. ‘History has so many of the answers.’ He was admired both within Catholic circles and beyond. After speaking at the 2000 national Catholic Education Conference, for instance, he received a letter with the feedback, ‘Father Bob Maguire, brilliant, a man of incredible enthusiasm and deep love of the people he helps, serves and washes the feet of. Very practical and different with much food for thought … Can you get enough of this man’s spirituality? He is articulate, well read and makes you know you can do it.’

  He was also praised as a social entrepreneur, although some of his followers despaired at some of his more outlandish ideas. ‘I’ve seen some doozies over time,’ says Frank O’Connor. ‘But they all arose because of that fierce desire he has to ensure that the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised and those whom society would rather discard and forget, all have the opportunity to say, “Well at least somebody has been willing to try and help me.”’

  He was tireless in supporting local activities, too. Just as he’d protested fourteen years before about the loss of South Melbourne’s VFL team and then the council amalgamation, he now joined in the series of protests about plans to shift the Australian Grand Prix from Adelaide to a street circuit in Albert Park. Like other locals, he saw it as unfair to turn a public park into a private playground for one week a year, and believed the huge amount of money it would cost to stage it each year could be much better spent elsewhere. But, as with the other two campaigns, this was another lost cause, and the first Grand Prix was held in Melbourne in 1996. ‘Bob has always been the unelected, de facto mayor of South Melbourne,’ says Brian Loughnane. ‘He’s part of the heartbeat of South Melbourne.’

  Yet the 55-year-old Father Bob could also be a chameleon in the way he connected with both rich and poor, and even changed the way he spoke in accordance with the circumstances – and what he could get out of them to help his flock. Many people saw him as an old leftie, good mates with all the unions, but he also had strong links with members of the Liberal Party and big business. ‘He’s always been able to get on with people, and he’s never been party political,’ says Brian. ‘At the end of the day, he does good work and that’s what attracts people.’

  He often puzzled everyone, however, with his use of language, and the metaphors he conjured up, often without bothering to explain them. He’d regularly go off on his own tangents and loved playing with words, either deliberately mispronouncing them or using the wrong ones: ‘I’ll put it in the dairy!’ he’d constantly declare, leaving callers wondering if some future engagement would ever actually end up in his big black appointments book.

  ‘Sometimes the gap between him and them would be too wide and people might think he was crazy, mad and rambling,’ says Father Ranger. ‘But there was always real meaning behind the riddles he spoke in, although it would take a while to understand it … and he doesn’t waste time explaining.’

  In addition, Father Bob’s strong anti-authoritarian streak attracted some, but could alarm the more conservative of his congregation. ‘His shtick was this vagabond outlaw priest,’ says Tony Barber, ‘and he plays it for all it’s worth. He could be a nightmare for a large organisation; he just does his own thing, and is determined to do his own thing. But as well as being a rough diamond on top, he also has the deep compassion of his priestly vocation. I had some personal problems at one stage, and he was tremendous and I was able to get some very, very good direction.’

  In public, Father Bob could be very much the man for all seasons. In church, he swept many away with his powerful, flowing oratory, usually speaking without any notes at all, and could hold an audience spellbound. ‘Sometimes, he’d speak just like a westie but other times he’d use unbelievably beautiful language,’ says Mavis Keighery, a long-time local supporter who worked for eighteen years for the Emerald Hill Mission and associated ventures. ‘And out of this man would come such wisdom.’ Most mornings, he’d still go for his bike ride around the area, stopping to chat to people on the way, and at other times, he’d walk his dog, Rocky, greeting most people he passed by name, and asking them how they were. Once, a motorist pulled up to ask for directions. Father Bob lent into the open window, asking, ‘Are you lost?’ The driver recognised him immediately. ‘No, Father, we’re found,’ he replied. Some evenings the priest would host big dinners around the magnificent carved dining table of the presbytery, with the intellectuals of the parish and the heads of various other religious denominations. He’d often be away too, speaking at conferences, seminars and functions, attending dinners and meeting business and political leaders to talk about his work, while he continued to have weekly spots on radio stations 3AK, 3AW and 3RRR, appeared often on TV current affairs shows, and wrote a regular column in the Catholic journal Kairos.

  But in private, he tended to be a surprisingly solitary man, preferring to spend evenings alone with Rocky, a good book, or in front of the TV – and often talking to it, too. Sometimes, he’d watch it with Costas, or seek him out for a chat, but more often he preferred his own company. Once, he was even heard to declare in church, ‘Hell may be a never-ending dinner party!’

  Frank O’Connor thinks he knows the priest’s secret. ‘Having got to know him very well over the years, you start to recognise he is really very shy,’ he says. ‘Of course, on a Myers-Briggs personality type test, he’d be off the scale as an outgoing extrovert, but I think his natural shyness is one of the reasons he puts on such a performance. He likes playing the role of the mad priest because it can mask over his insecurity.’

  His first curate in his early days in South Melbourne, Father Kevin Burke, always suspected that. Father Bob would often disappear after having lunch with people for some quiet time alone. ‘You’d organise dinner with him, and he’d always be late too, complaining that someone had forgotten to put it in the diary. He can be hard to contact too. Deep down, I think he’s quite a shy man, but always a fascinating character …’

  As a sign of that shyness, back in the presbytery Father Bob didn’t often really like to eat with other people. ‘He’s never really been a social man, even though that would surprise many,’ says
Mavis Keighery. ‘Father Ranger once told me that Bob never ate with him. He’d take his meal upstairs and read or watch TV while he was eating instead. He’s a bit of a loner. He’s also a shocking cook. He used to buy fillet steak and, if he was going out all day, he’d pre-cook it in a skillet in the morning then leave it to heat up when he got back in. What a way to have steak! And while he eats apples and bananas, I’ve never seen him prepare a vegetable.’

  The healthiest thing about him, said some of those who weren’t such great fans, was always his ego. An old seminarian colleague of his, now retired, once branded him a narcissist. Others are quick to his defence, however. ‘He was called that a couple of times, but that wouldn’t be my emphasis,’ says Damian Coleridge. ‘People respond to Bob and he’s able to reach out to them in a way certainly no other priest in the Diocese is able to do. He’s become a legend for that.’

  The first time Father Bob heard the description, he thought he was being accused of being an arsonist. When he understood it was actually a narcissist, he denied the claim. He admits there have been times when he’s had tickets on himself, but refutes that it’s egotism. ‘I don’t believe that to be true,’ he says. ‘I don’t personally enjoy public appearances. I do like others, however, to enjoy those appearances. Awareness-raising is part of a Catholic priest’s work, among Catholic worshippers or secondary-school students at Catholic colleges or spirituality at the pub gatherings. I don’t do any of these things for self-promotion except as a self-appointed representative of “gonzo” Catholicism. I suppose I have become a bit of an “infotainment” priest, but it’s all about covert evangelism. It was never “Look at me!” It was always about the faith.’