Today is a Day of Thanksgiving in Gozo – it marks the day when on September 16, 1864, Blessed Pope Pius IX dismembered the islands from Malta and established the Church of Gozo.

It has been celebrated every year since 1865 but it was the late Bishop Nikol Cauchi, who, in 1981, renamed the anniversary as a Day of Thanksgiving and had a special anniversary Mass included in the Maltese missal.

A concelebrated Mass of thanksgiving will be led by Gozo Bishop Anton Teuma at the Cathedral in Victoria today at 7.30am.

Mgr Teuma will also intone the Te Deum. Today also coincides with the first anniversary of the beginning of the ministry of Bishop Anton Teuma, the ninth pastor of the diocese.Gozo and Comino formed part of the diocese of Malta for many centuries.

The first petition for the establishment of a diocese was forwarded by Archpriest Saver Cassar on October 29, 1798, on the morrow of the expulsion of the French garrison from the island.

The request was also supported by Sir Adriano Dingli, who, following the granting to Malta of the Constitution of 1849, was one of the eight Maltese members elected to the Council of Government to represent the people. He was elected to represent the people of Gozo.

Don Pietro Pace, a young priest from Rabat, who eventually become Gozo’s third bishop, also pushed forward the request. The petition took 66 years to materialise.The Bull establishing the Gozo diocese opens with the words singulari amore (with remarkable love)... it was with remarkable love that Pope Pius IX understood the needs of the Gozitans and acceded to their wish. Michele-Francesco Buttigieg, archpriest of the Matrice and Collegiate Church, was elected first bishop of Gozo. The Matrice was chosen as the new cathedral of the diocese.

Mgr Buttigieg made his solemn entry into the new cathedral on October 23, 1864.

Though the Gozo diocese is one of the smallest in the Universal Catholic Church, with a population of around 30,000, the diocese has one of the most high, if not the highest, seminarian and priest population ratio in the world.

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