Anthony Manduca pays tribute to some of the prominent Maltese people who died this year.
Cardinal Prospero Grech, died on December 30, 2019, aged 94.
The Augustinian scholar who became the second cardinal in Maltese history was one of 22 cardinals appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in February 2012. Once described as “possibly the most intelligent man alive” by English priest Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith in an article in the Catholic Herald, Cardinal Grech served as a professor at the Augustine Institute in Rome. In 1970, he co-founded the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum attached to the Lateran University in Rome and served as its president from 1971 to 1979. In 2011, he was appointed a Companion of the National Order of Merit.