Mons Philip Calleja

I want to honor today a dedicated priest who died yesterday at the age of 93. Monsignor Philip Calleja initiated the Emigrants Commission and even was instrumental to build the Emigrants’ Building in Valletta in the early 1960s. I personally had a few contacts with him since I spent 35 years in the USA, and he often sent me letters inquiring about other priests who were in the States over the years. He was born on December 8, 1928 and was ordained on August 2 1953. He also worked in various offices at the Chancery. In the year 2000 he was also instrumental in organizing an international convention for those working with migrants, and I was asked by him to prepare a paper and delivered the speech in Malta. I recently interviewed him for the Maltese Catholic newspaper in which I’ve been writing since 1986. He was also the mastermind behind the Pope’s visit to Malta in 1990, having many contacts and an organizational mind, which he used effectively over the decades. Over the past 30 years he has also been helping the thousands of refugees that arrived in Malta searching for a new life. He died on August 16, 2022 at the Dar tal-Kleru, a retirement home for priests, where he has been residing lately.