(13 Sep 09 - RV) Pope Benedict’s first overseas voyage of 2010 was confirmed this weekend. The Pope will make an apostolic visit to Malta in April next year. The Maltese Bishops announced the news to the nation on Saturday. This is the third papal visit to the archipelago after those of John Paul II in 1990 and 2001. Dr. Alberto Gasbarri, head of the Pope's apostolic voyages outside Italy, will travel to Malta in October for the organization of the program.


Pope Benedict XVI accepted the invitation made him in recent months by local bishops and the President of Malta. The visit will take place marking the 1950 anniversary of St Paul’s shipwreck on the archipelago, which tradition holds occurred in 60 AD during his journey towards Rome. The Apostle to the Gentiles – recounts the Acts of the Apostles - was welcomed by local people “with a rare humanity”. He stayed three months before setting sail for Sicily: bitten by a viper, he was left unharmed, many islanders who had diseases came to him and were healed.


On June 16, 2005, in a message to the new Maltese ambassador to the Holy See, Antonio Ganado, Pope Benedict recalled the deep Christian roots of Malta and its "wealth of cultural and religious values" on which it can build "a future of solidarity and peace."


He further stressed Malta’s role in giving life " to a united and supportive Europe” which “must be able to combine the legitimate interests of each nation with the requirements of the common good of the whole Continent. "
 
In this regards, in a recent interview with Osservatore Romano, the Archbishop of Malta, Paul Cremona, appealed that his fellow nationals welcome migrants just as they welcomed the shipwrecked St Paul. He explained that in accepting the apostle Paul, the Maltese showed "a strong sense of openness toward the 'other', the stranger. “A feeling - he added - which must be preserved and practiced even in the current historical moment marked by mass migration”: a familiar phenomenon in Malta, situated as it is in the centre of the Mediterranean, and often the first place illegal migrants from Africa land. " We need to "eliminate prejudices - he said - and consider immigrants as people first."
 
Malta member of the EU since May 2004, gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964. The nation counts more than 410 thousand inhabitants, 98% of whom Catholic.