WATCHED THE POPE'S VISIT TO MALTA TODAY...HE IS LOOKING RESTED AND FIT...FOR HIS 83 YEARS.YESTERDAY WAS HIS BIRTHDAY...SO EVERYONE WAS SINGING ...HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
FINALLY...HE IS BEING TREATED WELL...NOT MALIGNED.Maltese Have Great Respect for the Pope

MALTA IS AN ISLAND IN THE MEDITERREAN SEA.
MALTA HAS A POPULATION OF 414,000.
95% ARE CATHOLIC.
Maltese are descendants of ancient Carthaginians and Phoenicians with strong elements of Italian and other Mediterranean stock.


Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday began a brief pilgrimage to this heavily Catholic island.

The overnight trip was long planned as a pilgrimage among the faithful to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary of St. Paul's shipwreck.

The Pope's flight was one of the few to depart on Saturday from Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome, where many flights were cancelled because of the no-fly zone in northern Italy and much of Europe due to the eruption of Iceland's volcano.

The pontiff, who turned 83 on Friday, sounded hoarse as he began the overnight trip on Malta. He flies back to Rome on Sunday evening.

The influence of the Catholic Church on the island is heavily felt in the European Union nation. Abortion and divorce are prohibited.

Tradition holds that St. Paul stayed three months on Malta after being shipwrecked on the way to Rome.