Obituary — Father Kevin Barr
1936 — 2020
FATHER Kevin Barr, 84, had a good heart, never lost hope and had a lot of respect for research. These were the sentiments shared by Suliana Siwatibau during her eulogy at Father Barr’s funeral mass at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Suva.
“I have known Father Barr since the early ‘80s through his involvement with multiracial street kids of Suva,” she said. “I remember giving some Suva street boys a lift in my truck as it was raining heavily.
“I dropped them off at a hostel at Flagstaff which I understood was acquired for them by Father Barr.
“The boys I gave a lift to, took my purse and emptied it, returning it a few days later through the youngest member.
“This continued to form the basis of the major program he promoted and supported.
“He was adamant about treating people right.
“He always insisted that respect for human dignity is fundamental to right relationships.”
Ms Siwatibau said the organisation he set up also began to settle people from urban squatter settlements to rural locations where they were given land to farm.
“He had a desire to see urban poor uplifted both socially and economically.”
He had a lot of compassion and held strong views for a development model based on Christian social democracy. “This would be inimical to the development model promoted by international finance bodies in which the poor carried the higher proportion of the tax burden.”
Ms Siwatibau, a botanist by profession, was one of Father Barr’s few close friends. She worked closely with him throughout his time in Fiji, through both his formative pastoral years and most challenging times.
Head of the Catholic Church Archbishop
Peter Loy Chong said Father Barr arrived in Suva in 1980 to teach at the Pacific Regional Seminary.
He was immediately struck by the social issues which cried out from the streets of Fiji’s cosmopolitan capital.
He took shoeshine boys and the homeless off Suva’s streets and into his home at Denison Rd to provide safety, love and a sense of self-worth and belonging.
“Father Kevin Barr for years, lived on the periphery of society – literally. His mission was always among the poor and when he moved out of the MSC community of priests – Kevin set up home at Marata, Wailoku, among the descendants of Solomon Islanders who came into Fiji as labourers,” he said.