Father Bob:
The Larrikin Priest

Father Bob Maguire was a man of passion, creativity and enormous humour; part Billy Connolly, part angry Old Testament prophet and part compassionate Mother Teresa – although he would have hated any attempt to pigeonhole him, even with heroes.

But he was an intriguingly complex character, both brilliant and flawed, who long charmed his followers, irritated his detractors and made many Australians think twice about the role of faith and spirituality in modern society.

His full story had never before been told – he’d spoken of his life before, but only in random pieces for people to put together like a jigsaw puzzle. Sue Williams was the first person to attempt to capture his whole story.

For 39 years, Father Bob was parish priest of Sts Peter and Paul church in South Melbourne. From this base, and through his foundation, he worked, hands on, with kids in need, the homeless, sick, criminal and hopelessly addicted, with both outstanding successes and crushing failures.

In his own words, Father Bob saw his work as a “life-long attempt to empower teens, twenty-somethings and even children to be their unique selves … unique contributors in recreating the world and the cosmos.”

Tragically, at the peak of his powers, church bosses forced the 2011 Victorian of the Year to retire, after a Herculean struggle by both the priest and thousands of his fans throughout Australia, to keep him in his job.

“Some people have said I’m a saint; to others, I’m more the devil incarnate,” he said. “I’ve been called the ‘sad’ priest because so much of my work has been with the poorest, most marginalised, most desperate people in Australia today. To some I’m a ‘bad’ priest, because many of my ways of doing things are quite unconventional, although my interpretation of the gospels has always been absolutely orthodox. And to many I might seem, at times, quite mad …”

Father Bob: The Larrikin Priest by Sue Williams was published by Penguin in May 2013 as a print book, e-book and audio book