Lay apostolate honoured

It is very positive that the Maltese state regularly honours members of the Church for their contribution to society. Generally these are clerical or religious members of the Church. On Republic Day this year the Maltese state honoured a lay person who is, and has been for several years, very active in missionary activities.

A Christian Outlook congratulates Mario Cappello for being honoured by the State, which conferred on him the Medal for Service to the Republic.

Mario, together with his wife Anna, his brother Henry and some other leaders of the Glory of God International Covenant Community, established the International Catholic Programme for Evangelisation in January of 1985 in Malta.

Today the ICPE Mission is spread in various countries. The ICPE Philippine centre has 22 full-time Catholic lay missionaries from Malta, South Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Taiwan, Poland, Singapore and Malaysia. The centre conducts a full-time three-month School of Mission every year, Inner Healing, Leadership and Worship seminars. Through the centre, extensive work of Evangelisation and formation is being done in the Philippines and several other countries in Asia.

Last year ICPE - now called the Institute for World Evangelisation - became the first ever-Maltese based lay organisation to achieve recognition by the Vatican. It was recognised by Pope John Paul II as an Inter-national Association of Christ's Faithful with Pontifical Right.

Mario was recently very active in organising a petition lobbying European leaders to include a reference to Christianity in the European Constitution. In 2000 ICPE distributed tens of thousands of videos in Malta about the life of Jesus.

Quite naturally Mario must be very happy with this honour as this is not just a personal honour but it is a recognition of the work of so many Catholic men and women in the area of evangelisation.