Għajnsielem Gets New Parish Priest: Meet the Hospital Chaplain Turned Village Shepherd

Gozo’s southern-most village, Għajnsielem, is preparing to welcome a new shepherd. Fr Michael Camilleri, 48, will be ordained as the 11th parish priest of the 3,000-strong community on 23 June, taking over from Mgr Carmelo Portelli who retired in March after 22 years at the helm. The announcement, made by the Diocese of Gozo last Sunday, has already set village cafés buzzing and reignited talk of festa fireworks, band marches and the quiet but powerful role faith still plays on the sister island.

For outsiders, a change of parish priest can sound like routine ecclesiastical admin. In Għajnsielem, it is closer to a municipal hand-over. The parish owns the lion’s share of public open spaces, runs the kindergarten and the food-bank, and underwrites the €200,000 feast of Our Lady of Loreto every September. “Whoever occupies the rectory is de-facto CEO of the village,” says mayor Kevin Cauchi. “We work shoulder-to-shoulder on everything from traffic flow to fundraising for dialysis patients.”

Fr Camilleri arrives with a CV that blends traditional pastoral care with a modern twist. A graduate in moral theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, he spent the last decade as chaplain to Gozo General Hospital and to the elderly residents of St Cecilia’s home in Victoria. Colleagues describe him as “the priest who swapped the confessional booth for a PPE gown” during COVID-19, anointing patients when families were locked out. “I learnt that the Church’s credibility is measured in presence, not sermons,” Fr Camilleri told Hot Malta during a break from packing boxes at the hospital chapel. “My first priority in Għajnsielem will be to listen—especially to those who no longer walk through the church door.”

That listening will be tested quickly. Like the rest of Malta, the village is grappling with a cost-of-living spike that is emptying pews faster than any theological debate. Census 2021 shows Sunday Mass attendance in Għajnsielem at 42 %, down from 58 % a decade earlier. Yet the same census records a 30 % rise in requests for parish welfare: grocery vouchers, school uniforms, even help with utility arrears. “We are poorer but also prouder,” says Marlene Pace who runs the parish charity office. “People would rather go hungry than ask the state. They still see the Church as family.”

Economics, however, is only half the story. Għajnsielem sits at the gateway to Mgarr harbour, the first glimpse of Gozo that 4.2 million ferry passengers get every year. Over the past five years the once-sleepy waterfront has sprouted three boutique hotels and 800 new apartments, triggering tension between investors hungry for short-let licences and residents fighting sky-rocketing rents. Mgr Portelli’s parting gift was a pastoral letter urging council and hunters’ lobby, band club and developers to sign a “covenant of custodianship” for communal open spaces. Fr Camilleri inherits that fragile truce. “The harbour is our living room,” he says. “If faith can’t speak to concrete worries—housing, noise, garbage—then it is just museum piety.”

Village band clubs—two of them, naturally—are watching closely. Each September the rival musical repertoires compete for decibel dominance during the Loreto feast, a tradition that once ended in fisticuffs and still fills the police logbook. Fr Camilleri has already asked both band presidents to lunch. “We joked that he’ll need a bigger table,” laughs Josephine Attard, president of the St Joseph Band. “But humour is how Gozitans solve problems. If he keeps that spirit, we’ll play along—literally.”

Environmentalists hope the new parish will also bless their cause. The diocese owns 40,000 square metres of garigue overlooking Mgarr ix-Xini bay, earmarked by a private developer for a luxury marina. Mgr Portelli quietly blocked the plan by refusing alienation of Church land; NGOs want Fr Camilleri to turn that临时 veto into a permanent nature park. “Protecting creation is protecting the poor,” he responds, quoting Pope Francis without quite committing—yet.

Back in the square, 83-year-old Ġorġa Bajada offers a simpler yardstick. “My husband died in 1993, the year they put up the new belfry. Every evening I light a candle and gossip with Our Lady. I just need the priest to keep the door open.” Keeping doors open—physical and metaphorical—will be Fr Camilleri’s real ordination. If he succeeds, Għajnsielem may show the rest of Malta that parishes can still be villages in miniature, where belief and belonging survive the 21st century.