The Palm Beach Post has published a glowing report about a Maltese priest who has served in Florida for 55 years and is regarded as "a living history of the Catholic Church's growth in Florida".
Fr Francis Xavier Fenech, 85, if affectionately called The Movie Star by his friends, and the reporter did not need to ask many questions to learn why - he was wearing pastel Izod sweaters, a dark Armani suit and big sunglasses at his residence in West Palm Beach.
Fr Fenech worked in St. Augustine, the state's first diocese, in the 1950s, in the Miami Archdiocese in the 1960s and in Palm Beach Diocese since it was formed 26 years ago.
In his 60-year career as a priest, he worked in native Malta, Australia, Spain and France before being invited to Florida in 1955 by Archbishop Joseph Hurley.
"I told him I would go there one year, two years," Fenech told the newspaper with a wry smile. "It has been 55 years."
In his first years he established a center in Miami's garment district for 600 Puerto Rican families working there. He then made his reputation as an administrator and parish-builder at St. Raymond parish in Coral Gables, where he added several buildings, one of which was named after him.
He took a course to master Spanish when he worked with Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants in Miami. In a few years, he moved to Sebring and from there to St. Philip Benizi in Belle Glade, St. Mary in Pahokee, when that parish was still a mission, and Holy Cross in Indiantown.
When he became pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Lake Worth in 1983, he remodeled the church, the church hall and added a parish center.
"He was a hands-on pastor, in the sense that he did a lot of building, not just the liturgical work," said his fried Fr Paul Manning.
When the chaplain rebuffed his efforts to make a pastoral visit to the Glades Correctional Institution, he wrote Archbishop Joseph Hurley in St. Augustine.
"That got changed right away," said Carl Modecki, another of Fenech's longtime friends.
An ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease has reduced Fr Fenech's voice to a whisper and he is recovering from a recent fall. When he can, he continues to celebrate Mass in the chapel or in his room.
"He's very soft-spoken, from the Parkinson's and the medicine, but he preaches by example," Fr Manning said. "He doesn't have to say much, but when people see him with his breviary or saying the rosary, it's just genuine."
Although he has not returned to Malta for decades, he still speaks regularly on the phone with his two older sisters there, in Maltese.
And when Pope Benedict XVI visited Malta he was glued to the television watching the live coverage on the EWTN network.
The immigrant was back home again, after so many years.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/for-decades-maltese-priest-has-served-floridians-old-682295.html