Pope to Visit Malta in April 2010

(September 14, 2009) Pope Benedict XVI is planning to make an apostolic visit to Malta in the Mediterranean, next April, to commemorate 1,950 years since St. Paul's shipwreck there. A press release from the Maltese bishops on Saturday said the visit was in response to their invitation, along with that of the nation's president, George Abela. It will be the third trip of a Pontiff to the Mediterranean island nation, including Pope John Paul II's trips in 1990 and 2001. According to tradition, St. Paul the apostle is said to have been shipwrecked in the archipelago in 60 A.D., during his second voyage toward Rome. He remained on the island for three months before setting out for Sicily. Bitten by a viper, he was unaffected, and many islanders who were ill went to him and were healed. Alberto Gasbarri, the Pope’s trip organizer, will go to Malta in October to plan out the papal trip. Malta, which won independence from the United Kingdom in 1964, has some 410,000 inhabitants, 98% of whom are Catholic.