VALLETTA, Malta (CNS): On the last day of his pilgrimage in the footsteps of St Paul, Pope John Paul II beatified three Maltese Catholics and called them guides for the Church’s future.
Malta, an almost entirely Catholic country with deep feelings of friendship toward the Pope, gave him a rousing welcome during his May 8-9 visit. Many on the Mediterranean island took a two-day holiday in the Pope’s honour.
It was a kind of homecoming for the pontiff, who was arriving from relatively low-key receptions in mostly Orthodox Greece and predominantly Muslim Syria, earlier stops on his six-day pilgrimage.
Celebrating Mass in Valletta May 9, the Pope beatified Fr George Preca, who founded a movement devoted to Catholic teaching and evangelisation; Sr Maria Adeodata Pisani, a cloistered nun known for her commitment to the poor; and Ignatius Falzon, who evangelised among British sailors and boat workers in the 1800s.
An estimated 170,000 people – nearly half the country’s population – packed Malta’s biggest square and surrounding streets for the liturgy.
