RIP: 18/05/2024 - Perth
Fr. Bogdan Pałka was born on 1 November 1963 in Krzeszowice, situated between Trzebinia and Kraków. Between 1970 and 1978 he attended primary school in his home town. He then continued his education at the Technical School of Wood Industry in Krzeszowice. After graduating from high school, he took a job at the “Staszic” coal mine in Katowice. However, after a year of professional work, he made a final decision to follow the voice of his religious and priestly vocation. He entered the novitiate on 7 September 1984 and, exactly one year later, he made his first religious profession on 8 September 1985 in Bagno. From 1985 to 1992, he studied philosophical and theological disciplines at the Salvatorian Major Seminary in Bagno. He completed his initial formation and was ordained priest on 8 May 1992. Fr. Bogdan’s first pastoral post was in the religious community of Piastów, where from 1 July 1992 he took up his duties as vicar in the parish of St. Michael the Archangel. It was during this period that Fr. Bogdan’s desire arose in his heart to go abroad and take up the ministry as pastor of the Polish community in the USA. From 1994 to 2010 he was sent to the USA where he worked in different parishes and served in the pastoral care of the sick. In 2010 he returned to his home country and took up pastoral ministry first in Trzebnica and later in Bystra. From 2014 onwards, he exercised pastoral ministry in the Polish Foundation in Scotland, more specifically in Perth. Wherever he worked, Fr Bogdan will be remembered as a quiet and dedicated confrere and pastor. He died suddenly on 18 May 2024 in his parish in Scotland. He was 60 years old and had been a Salvatorian for 38 years.
