Pope’s Ambassador to visit Heywood

Archbishop Paul Gallagher is to visit Heywood on Friday. He is pictured here, second from the left

An Ambassador of Pope Benedict XVI is to visit Heywood this Friday, 11 April.

His Excellency Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi, is visiting St. Joseph’s church, Heywood, on Friday evening to take Mass and celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and completes the sacrament of baptism.

Archbishop Gallagher, who was born in Liverpool, is the Pope’s Ambassador to Burundi, in Africa; a country which has experienced conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes similar to the perhaps better known conflict in neighbouring Rwanda.

Father Paul Daly, Priest at St. Joseph’s, said: “It is a joy to welcome Archbishop Paul to Heywood to celebrate Mass with us. At St. Joseph’s we try to keep the people of Africa, and the whole of the developing world, at the forefront of our prayers and concern. The Archbishop will be celebrating Confirmation for some members of our parish but he will also confirm all of us in that wider expression of solidarity that is truly the meaning of the word ‘catholic.’”

Archbishop Gallagher was ordained in 1977 and became a member of the Vatican Diplomatic Service. Since 1984 he has held posts in Tanzania, Uruguay, the Philippines, the Vatican Secretariat of State in Rome and with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The Vatican announced his appointment as Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi in January 2004.