A reminder that tomorrow, a Mass in suffrage of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will be held in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Victoria, starting at 6.30pm, led by Cardinal Mario Grech together with the Bishop of Gozo Anton Teuma.

The Gozo Diocese said that upon the death of Pope Benedict last Saturday, the Bishop of Gozo Anton Teuma commented on him as follows: “Benedict XVI, the Pope who marked three pontificates, has passed on to eternal life. He was the theologian of John Paul II. It was the Pope who showed his coherence and courage with the gesture of resignation. He was the Pope Emeritus who spent the rest of his life in prayer for the Church. As a Maltese and Gozitan people, we are grateful to him not only because he came to visit us in 2010, but also because he gave us two Pastors for our Dioceses: Bishop Mario Grech, now a Cardinal, and Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.”

It was Pope Benedict who appointed Mons. Mario Grech, today Cardinal and General Secretary of the Synod, as Bishop of Gozo on 26 November 2005, after accepting the resignation due to the age of the Bishop before him Nikol G. Cauchi.

Although in his Apostolic Journey to the Maltese Islands on 17 and 18 April 2010 he did not visit the island of Gozo, at the end of the Mass on the Fossas tal Floriana Pope Benedict was laying a Rose of -Gold at the feet of the miraculous and devoted Square of Our Lady of Pinu, which was taken there specially for the occasion, and invited the Maltese people to call her “Sultana tal-Familja.”

Between 2007 and 2013, the year in which he resigned, Pope Benedict XVI had as his second Secretary a priest from the Diocese of Gozo – Mons. Alfred Xuereb, who is today Apostolic Nuncio in Korea and Mongolia.

The Gozo Diocese said that the Mass is on Saturday, the 7th of January.

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