Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, former head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and former papal nuncio to Egypt, is returning to the UK to join his religious order’s new community in Liverpool, writes Ruth Gledhill.
On 13 October, Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool officially welcomed the Missionaries of Africa, or White Fathers, into the inner-city parish of St Vincent de Paul.
The Missionaries of Africa see their mission as not only on the Continent of Africa but to the entire African world, and St Vincent’s is in an area with a considerable migrant population.
Archbishop Fitzgerald has been living in Jerusalem since his retirement as papal nuncio in Egypt in 2012, and is due to join the community shortly before Christmas. He told The Tablet: “Going to Liverpool is not exactly a homecoming, but my uncle was parish priest of Our Lady’s, Eldon Street.”