Michael Fava

Michael Paul Dare Fava CBE QHC (born 1962) is a British Catholic priest and former British Army chaplain. From 2018 to 2020, he served as Deputy Chaplain General of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department: he is the first Roman Catholic to hold the post.^[1]

Fr Michael Fava in 2020

Biography

Fava was born in 1962 in Kampala, Uganda, before moving to the United Kingdom in 1970.^[2] He was educated at Salesian College, Farnborough, an independent Catholic school.^[3] He studied theology at the University of Oxford and then pastoral theology at the University of London.^[2]

Fava entered the Order of Saint Benedict in 1980, and was ordained to the priesthood on 8 July 1989.^[4][5] He was commissioned into the British Army as a chaplain in 1997.^[4][6] In 2004, he moved from the Benedictines to become a secular priest affiliated with the Diocese of Portsmouth.^[4] He appointed Deputy Chaplain-General to Her Majesty's Land Forces Army in November 2018,^[1] and promoted to the rank of deputy chaplain general (equivalent to brigadier) on 30 June 2019.^[7]

On 5 July 2017, Fava was appointed an Honorary Chaplain to the Queen (QHC).^[8] He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours.^[9]

Fava retired from the British Army on 30 October 2020.^[10] In late 2021, he joined St Joseph's Church, Newbury, Berkshire, in the Diocese of Portsmouth, as parish priest.^[11][12]