I am not going to enter the controversy as regards my old friend Fr Mark Montebello, but few know that he was for many months the guiding force behind the Walsingham Foundation, an adoption support organisation whose main task was the first adoption of a Bulgarian child by a Maltese couple.

For the first few months he used to attend our committee meetings and guide us accordingly. It was he who drafted our statute and encouraged us to go to Bulgaria to start talks about the possibility of adopting children from that country, after Romania, Albania and Pakistan closed their doors to international adoption, and the result is here for everyone to see; a new window has been opened. Ask the happy couple about Fr Mark, who also placed Dar it-Tama premises at our disposal.

One must not forget how we turned to him for comfort, something he immediately accepted, after a death in the family, when he concelebrated in the Mass asking nothing in return. But for him, seeing the positive results are more important than monetary gifts.

Eugene Sapiano

Zabbar