ABOUT THE MALTESE PROVINCE

The Franciscan Capuchins came to Malta in 1588/89. Their first Friary was built by Grand Master Hugh Loubens de Verdalle outside the walls of Valletta (nowadays Floriana). About 150 years later, they built two more Friaries: one outside Vittoriosa in 1736 (nowadays Kalkara) and another one in Rabat, Gozo, in 1737. They formed part of the Capuchin Province of Sicily till 1740, when by a Decree of the Minister General of the Capuchin Order, Fr. Giuseppe M. of Terni, issued in Rome on the 25th June 1740, the Custody of Malta was established. Exactly 100 years after the establishment of the autonomous Maltese Capuchin Custody, the then Minister General of the Order, Fr. Eugene of Rumily, found it fit to raise the three existing Friaries to the status of an independent Province, with an added responsibility of a Prefecture Apostolic in Tunis. They continued to work in Tunisia till 1891. The Maltese Capuchin Province was officially established by a Decree issued on 27th August 1840. During the current century, the Maltese Capuchins founded five more Friaries: two at Marsa, "Holy Trinity" in 1912; and "Maria Regina" in 1958 (1961); one at Xemxija, St.Paul's Bay in 1935 (1961); one in San Gwann in 1938 (1940); and one at Ghajn Dwieli, Paola, in 1953. They also undertook apostolic work in India. The first missionaries went to India in 1923 and stayed till 1979, founding in the process the diocese of Jhansi, and for more than ten years also helping in the Archdiocese of Bhopal. Since 1974, they are engaged in missionary work in the Diocese of Garissa, Kenya, while at the same time they are responsible for the running of the Capuchin Custody in Kenya. Others work in Turkey. The above are just a few milestones in over four hundred years of Capuchin presence in our Islands. They are, however, only impersonal heartaches, the grim determination, the toil and sweat and selfless zeal and devotion to duty of very many of our Friars who bore the heat of the day to make what our Capuchin Province of St. Paul the Apostle is today: A landmark in the history of the Order and the Church in our fatherland and beyond.

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