Runaway priest was veteran journalist’s most memorable story

Mr Lomas told The Spinoff website that the story that stays in his mind the most was titled “The Runaway Priest”.

“It was a guy, Filipo, whose family were from a Catholic Island in Tokelau, and he was sent to join an order in Rome,” he recalled

“When he got there, he was abused and used for manual labour and treated like a secondary person. Filipo fled the priesthood and was too ashamed to come home, so he just disappeared in Rome.

“For around 30 odd years, his family tried to find him with no luck, so we went in search of him,” Mr Lomas continued.

“It was a story which took a few years to solve. When we finally found Filipo, we got him to come to this hotel just outside of Rome and do an interview in the courtyard.

“We then got his sister Malia to walk out. She did this stage whisper from behind – ‘Filipo?’ – and his face just died of shock because he recognised her voice immediately.” 

Mr Lomas said that, as a television story, “that one was just super magic – a very, very tearful, very, very successful reunion”.

Filipo has “come back to New Zealand and he’s a big part of the family now, so that’s great”.

Mr Lomas started work for TVNZ in 1988, including working for the Holmes programme. In 2009, he began hosting and directing the long-running Missing Pieces series on TV3, in which he reunited family members who have lost contact or never met.

The hit series was later renamed Lost and Found. It was reborn with a slightly wider brief as David Lomas Investigates in 2020.

FULL STORY

I’ve watched them all, says David Lomas (The Spinoff)

David Lomas | NZ On Screen (NZ On Screen)

David Lomas searches for a runaway priest in Rome | Stuff (Stuff)