MALTA, May 9, 01 (CWNews.com) - The government declared a national holiday, and two-thirds of the country's citizens came out to participate in the ceremony, as Pope John Paul II presided at the beatification of three natives of Malta on Wednesday.
The Holy Father showed obvious signs of fatigue during the ceremony on this, the final stop of his latest papal voyage. But after having confronted racial, political, and religious tensions on the previous stops in Greece and Syria, the Pope was warmly embraced on this island nation where over 95 percent of the people are Catholics.
The crowd began to gather in St. Publius Square at dawn, and the scene became more colorful first with the arrival of many Maltese natives in vintage automobiles from the 1950s, then later with the ceremonial entry of the Knights of Malta in their black capes. An estimated 200,000 people braved the hot sun for the beatification ceremony.
In his homily, Pope John Paul traced the lives of the three Maltese natives who were beatified:
Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani (1806-1855) was born in Italy but moved to Malta in 1825 and spent the rest of her years there-most of them in the cloister of a Benedictine convent where she eventually became the abbess. Blessed Ignatius Falzon (1813- 1865) left a promising career in law to become a humble monk, declining his bishop's invitation to become a priest, and serving the children of the British soldiers garrisoned in Malta. Blessed George Preca (1880-1962), the founder of the Society of Christian Doctrine, was "a pioneer in the field of catechetics and in promoting the role of the laity in the apostolate," the Pope remarked.
After the ceremony, the Holy Father returned to the residence of the papal nuncio, to rest before his flight home.
Catholic World News Service - Vatican Update
9. mai 2001