Bishop Sylvester Magro ‘a courageous, dedicated and humble man’

Bishop Sylvester Magro ‘was courageous, dedicated and humble’, former foreign affairs Minister George Vella said.

Bishop Magro died last week, on 20 January, 2018 at the age of 76.

He was a Maltese bishop who served as the Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi in Libya from 1997 up until 2016.

The Bishop was born in Rabat, Malta, on 14 February 1941.

It was in 1957, when he joined the Franciscan order, and was ordained a priest nine years later in March of 1966.

Magro served as the parish priest of Sliema, before becoming responsible for the Maltese and English-speaking communities in Libya in 1991.

In 1997, Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi. He was later ordained a bishop by the Apostolic Nuncio of Malta, Archbishop José Sebastián Laboa Gallego.

He was assisted by Joseph Mercieca, the Archbishop of Malta and Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli.

In 2002, the Bishop was also awarded  ‘The Cross of the Equestrian Order of Merit’ from the Polish President, for his work with the Polish catholic community in Libya.

George Vella said Bishop Sylvester Magro would not leave Libya in 2011

During the Libyan Civil War, Bishop Magro was repeatedly told to flee the country for his own safety and because of the area’s instability, yet he still remained with the people of Libya, even in the midst of difficult times.

Vella got to know Magro after he became a bishop and moved to Libya. Speaking to MaltaToday, Vella said that when they started to evacuate Maltese people from Libya in 2011, he contacted Magro to help him leave the area.

At the time, Magro was in Benghazi, which was not a safe place. “We were trying to bring everyone back on the island and had a crisis centre set up to communicate with the people overseas,” Vella said.

“Magro didn’t want to come back, he’d tell me, ‘You don’t even have to tell me, I’m staying here.’ yet we constantly tried to convince him to come back.”

For a number of months, Magro lived in poverty in just two small rooms which he never left. He continued to carry out his pastoral mission in Libya in such dangerous situations and was devoted to help the Philippine people in the area, Vella said.

“Once, he came to visit me in Malta. I was relieved, thinking he had returned, yet he reassured me he had a return ticket and was going back to Benghazi,” Vella recounted.

Even Monsignor Aldo Cavalli, then Apostolic Nuncio to Malta would constantly contact Vella, trying to get him to convince Magro to come back to Malta, “We tried and tried but he wanted to stay. There was no convincing him.”

Magro only returned to Malta from Libya in August 2014, on one of the last flights organised by the government at the time.

“He truly impressed me, he believed in his work and didn’t want to do anything else. He was courageous and dedicated, but he was also humble. I don’t know anyone else who would stay there in such a situation,” Vella said.

On the Bishop’s 75th birthday in 2016, Pope Francis accepted his resignation and appointed George Bugeja OFM, then co-adjutor bishop of Tripoli, as his successor.

His funeral, praesente cadavere, was held on Monday January 22 at the Mdina cathedral.

Former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi also said that the Bishop was dedicated and one of a kind.

“You wouldn’t find many people who would risk their life like Bishop Magro did,” the former prime minister said. “It really shows what kind of person he really was.”

“He was a great man who chose to risk his life to fulfil his duty as the Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi.”

During his funeral, the Archbishop described Bishop Magro as an Ambassador of Christ and of the Maltese people’s big hearts.

Archbishop Scicluna said Bishop Magro suffered the consequences of his mission, particularly on a psychological level. The Archbishop added that Monsignor Magro was proof of religious tolerance, and described him as an ambassador of all that is Maltese.

At the end of the Mass Apostolic Nuncio Alessandro D’Errico read a message from the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on behalf of Pope Francis, and another from the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who both showed their appreciation for Bishop Magro’s work and dedication to deliver the Word of God through his pastoral work in his various missions as member of the Franciscan Order.