23rd November 1922
Mgr Joseph De Piro nominated Director of St Joseph’s Home, Santa Venera, Malta

After being for two years Rector of the Major Seminary in Mdina, Malta (1918-1920), Mgr Joseph De Piro requested to be relieved of the post. He wished to dedicate himself more fully to the religious missionary Society which he had founded a few years earlier (30th June 1910). In spite of the fact that Archbishop Mauro Caruana had acceded to this request, two years later (1922) his Excellency nominated the Servant of God to yet another post, that of Director of St. Joseph Institute, Santa Venera. This time De Piro did not even mention the Society. He accepted the Archbishop’s request immediately. This meant that De Piro became Director of St Joseph’s no less than 15 years after being first nominated Director of Fra Diegu, another ecclesiastical charitable institute in Malta.

De Piro’s link with St Joseph’s had been initiated a long time before his being nominated Director of the Institute. He was still a seminarian in Rome (1898-1902) and he already showed in his Diary that after his priestly ordination he wished to live at the Orphanage. When after some three years, Bishop Peter Pace offered him the possibility to go to the Accademia Dei Nobili to start a diplomatic career in the Church, the Servant of God showed His Excellency that he still wished to go to St Joseph’s. In the meantime during his four years of study in Rome, he used to help St Joseph’s financially by sending donations to the Director of the Home. De Piro made his option for the poor early in his life.

But De Piro’s was not only a personal option; the Founder made this choice even for his prospective missionary Society. After returning from Switzerland , he immediately tried to find priests who could join him in the setting up of his society. To Fr Emmanuel Vassallo, director of St Joseph’s, he even presented his project in writing. When writing about the scope of the Society, De Piro mentioned St Joseph’s Home as one of the “Campi prossimi d’azione” for the members of his Society. This was to occur in reality a short time after De Piro’s nomination to St. Joseph’s, since the Freres De La Salle who were running St Joseph’s, were finding it difficult to continue doing so because of lack of vocations. When they left, De Piro called in the members of his Society to replace them. And the Society is sill there until today!

Fr Tony Scibberas mssp