Courtney McGrailA popular singing priest is set to wow X Factor judges Down Under this weekend after making it through the auditions to the live finals.
Fr Rob Galea (32), originally from Malta, ministers in St Kilian’s in Bendingo, Victoria in Australia.
No stranger to big performances, the priest plays for an average of 200,000-500,000 people each year and has released a number of albums.
Only four years after his ordination, Fr Galea is already being credited with re-energising the Catholic Church in Australia, however he said his role is “to make God famous”.
“I am the instrument, the face of it very often,” he said.
“I’m not producing religious songs, I’m producing positive songs that I think are after the heart of God. It’s about our human dignity and about us being loved, no matter what our feelings, our sexual orientation. No matter what,” he said.
Fr Galea, who sang in front of Pope Benedict XVI at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008, said his call “first and foremost is to be a priest”.
“I love my vocation, and if my call as a priest is to speak to the hearts of the people, then logically for me this is through my music. I will continue to play music as long as I can, in the confines of the church, in my room and to the rest of the world.”