In the second year of a five-year plan of pastoral visits to towns and villages around Malta, Archbishop Paul Cremona visited 12 localities in eight months.
The aim behind these visits is for the Archbishop to meet the people who do voluntary work in the parishes. After a pastoral visit to Mgarr this weekend, he is expected to visit Mosta and Gharghur.
The archbishop visited Mellieha, St Paul’s Bay, Zejtun, Marsaxlokk, Birzebbuga, Tarxien, Santa Lucija, Qawra, Burmarrad, Ghaxaq, Manikata and Birkirkara (St Helen Parish) between October last year and June.
During the visits he met representatives of civil society in the locality, church groups and church commissions whose work includes animating Mass, Catholic teaching for children and adults, helping people who are socially in need, working with young people, married couples and their families,
The archbishop also met children attending primary schools and Catholic teaching centres, adolescents, and particular groups such as farmers, fishermen and others.
After each visit, the Archbishop listed a number of priorities that each parish should work on. The priorities were in a message which was read during Mass the following Sunday together with a detailed report prepared by the Pastoral Secretariat, pointing out a number of concrete proposals. These reports give a clear picture of how each parish can function better and how human resources and other material available in the parish can be used to better advantage.
Among the different initiatives taken after the Archbishop’s pastoral visit, there is a study on families with particular needs and how the Church can help them, initiatives to start reaching foreigners and tourists that frequent churches in the northern part of Malta, how the Church can reach out to farmers, meetings with professionals in various sectors. Apart from encouraging similar initiatives, the archbishop also directs those who have the responsibility to improve parish life.
The Archbishop had expressed his wish to visit all Maltese parishes when he was instated as Archbishop three years ago. Since then, he has visited 27 parishes out of a total of 70.