The death has recently been announced of Fr Donat Spiteri. He was 89 years of age and a resident of the Clergy House in Birkirkara. His funeral was held on 22 December at Holy Trinity Church, Marsa.

He was born in Marsa on 13 October 1922, joined the Capuchin Order and was ordained priest on 13 March 1948.

He was sent to study Holy Scripture at the Gregorian University in Rome and subsequently at the Pontificio Istituto Bibblico. On his return to Malta in 1954, he started teaching Capuchin students.

He served as parish priest of Holy Trinity Church in Marsa between 1958 and 1967 and built the St Pius X Centre. Later, between 1983 and 1991, he was parish priest at San Ġwann where he established the parish centre and restored the chapel dedicated to St Margaret.

Between 1966 and 1988 he taught Bible Studies at the University. Together with Professor Karm Sant, he set up the Għaqda Bibblika Maltija which translated the Bible into Maltese – a mammoth task that took the entire period from 1967 to 1984.

Fr Donat, as he was known, wrote many books about the Bible and in January 1974 he began publishing Kliem il-Ħajja, a small booklet with a quotation from the Bible for every day. Some 20,000 copies of this booklet are printed every time and distributed around Malta and Gozo by an army of volunteers.

Fr Spiteri was honoured by the local councils of Marsa and San Ġwann and in 2009 he was honoured with the Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika (Medal for Service to the Republic).