Gozo Bishop Mgr Mario Grech is 50 today.
The bishop was born in Qala and grew up in Kercem where he attended the Carmelite Sisters School and the Kercem Primary.
He attended the Victoria Secondary School and studied philosophy and theology at the Gozo Seminary.
Mgr Grech, who holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome, started his priestly formation at the Sacred Heart Seminary in Gozo, in 1977, and was ordained in 1984.
He was consecrated bishop on January 22, 2006 at the cathedral, in Victoria.