Australia’s X Factor favourite Fr Rob Galea performs before half a million people a year, has worked with the hottest talent in music and has amassed legions of fans. He is also an ordained priest who reaches out to young people. He tells Kim Dalli that the roles are two sides of the same coin.

Fr Rob Galea is not your typical priest. He pairs his black, Roman collar shirt with a pair of Armani jeans and hipster glasses, enjoys posting gym selfies on Instagram and has the word ‘Forgiven’ tattooed across his chiselled bicep.

He sings live before 300,000 youths a year and was touted as a firm favourite to win Australia’s X Factor last month before he decided to withdraw from the massively popular reality music competition.

Yet the soft-spoken 33-year-old does not see himself as a pop star but as a pastor, whose mission it is to give young people hope. Ordained in Malta five years ago, Fr Rob is based in Australia where he started a youth group in an effort to bring young people back to Mass. The group has now grown to be one of the country’s largest youth ministries.

Australia also has the second highest suicide rate in the world for people aged between 13 and 34, he points out.

It is also a country which, unlike Malta, is highly secular.

“This is why I spend my life going into schools, clubs, conferences, using the social media and going out. I believe that if the Church stays inside and protects itself from the inside, it will perish. It will disengage itself from the rest of society.

“What the Church in Australia does well is that it goes out to the people, it dialogues with people.

If we are so busy evangelising that we don’t let our humanity show through then you lose a sense of authenticity

“I go on national television, I went on X Factor, I write music for nightclubs – I go wherever young people are.”

Was it the hope of being able to reach a wider audience of people which prompted him to submit his name as an X Factor hopeful?

Partly that but partly also for selfish reasons, he admits, adding that he did not want to look back in 10 years’ time and think he could have done it but did not.

He had already been asked to audition and had declined for three years in a row before he decided to go for it this year. His audition was successful and he made it through to bootcamp.

But while he was there, he realised how much of a commitment it was to see through the competition’s 16 weeks. Contestants were kept at Fox Studios in Sydney, were they trained, rehearsed and performed constantly.

“At the end of the day, I had already made commitments. I have a tour schedule fully booked until the end of 2017 with concerts all around the world.

“It was hard to leave – it’s almost like disappointing the people who supported me. But I love what I do and I’m at peace with where I am. I don’t want to compromise my life by chasing rainbows. I’m already signed with a label and I tour 150 days a year.”

During concerts such as in India, he had to rely on security staff to help haul him off the stage after he was mobbed by some 14,000 adoring fans.

How does he reconcile the pop star way of life with the humility and way of life associated with the likes of St Francis of Assisi?

“Take Pope Francis, he is not afraid of crowds and of popularity as long as it points to someone greater than himself and that someone is God. I never, for one moment, point towards myself. I have nothing to offer. If what it takes to point to God is to be famous, then I’ll do it.

“I’m a naturally shy person and I don’t like being before crowds. I’ve sang in crowds of up to half-a-million people and it’s absolutely terrifying. But at the end of the day, if these people see in me some kind of role model, someone who can give them hope and who points to God, then I’ll do it.”

The biggest problem facing young people nowadays is a sense of detachment from their community, their surroundings, their own emotions and from authentic love, leading them to wind up in a place of hopelessness, Fr Rob says.

“The way I see it is that you’re in this place of darkness, crawling across a dark floor and somebody lifts you up on their shoulders – a pair of shoulders of a giant. And your perspective changes.”

As a teen, Fr Rob went through a rebellious stage, spiralling into addiction and depression.

Yet, sometimes, one needed to touch the darkness to appreciate the light, he reflects. He is grateful to have had people around him who dragged him up into the light. Fr Rob is also unafraid to be “authentic”.

I don’t want to compromise my life by chasing rainbows

“I’m not afraid to take a gym selfie and post it online,” he says, adding that he received a lot of criticism for this.

He trains every day, working on weightlifting and bodybuilding. Working out at the gym helps him relax, especially since he is constantly around people and dealing with death or depression and self-harm.

The gym is his way of slamming down the brakes, of clearing his mind and is part of his prayer time and fellowship with God.

“This is who I am. I’m not afraid of my humanity, of my weaknesses, of my struggles, of my doubts. Allowing ourselves to recognise our humanity allows us to connect with other people’s humanity.

“If we are so busy evangelising that we don’t let our humanity shine through, then you lose a sense of authenticity.”

Despite the esteem he has received, he has also walked down the streets of Melbourne where he was spat at. He has also been verbally abused three times while he was at his parish church.

Why the hostility?

“I represent an institution that has abused their children and their families. At the end of the day, I don’t blame them. Every priest is a paedophile in their eyes. They’re angry and rightfully so. In fact, I tell them: ‘You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Your anger is expressed wrongly but you’re right, because you’ve been hurt.’

“And on behalf of this institution, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what you had to go through. It angers me. It’s the sin of my forefathers which has affected me, my ministry and thousands of people who could have been living in hope but where that was taken away from them.”

Touching upon homosexuality and civil unions, he says the Church never preached that gay people were imperfect or flawed. The Church is incomplete without people from all walks of life.

It did not recognise their union as a sacramental marriage because one of the definitions of marriage was an openness to life.

The Church’s flaw was often one of communication and of presenting itself in a way which made people feel unwanted, unloved, imperfect and unaccepted.

“Sometimes it seems to come across as saying that: ‘If you don’t do this, you’re rubbish.’ That’s horrible, that’s not what the Church is on about.

“The Church is saying: ‘Hey guys, this is the ideal – don’t give up, aim for it but if you fall short of it, man, we’ll still love you.”