Paul Bird (bishop)
Paul Bird C.Ss.R. is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ballarat.
Bird was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on 17 July 1949. He attended Catholic primary and high schools in the Newcastle area. He joined the formation program of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in 1968 and studied at the Redemptorist seminary at Wendouree near Ballarat for four years before completing his studies at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne. He was ordained as a priest on 17 May 1975 and appointed Bishop of Ballarat on 1 August 2012.
In 2016, Bird stated that the estate of a former Bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, had been left to the diocese and would be set aside to help victims of child sexual abuse committed by priests in the diocese. As bishop, Mulkearns had facilitated moving the priests to different parishes.
