The Roman Empire has been dead for more than 15 centuries, yet it is still very much alive. Yes it is alive in words adopted by the Roman Church, words such as curia, episcopos and also diocesis. The canonical term "diocese" is derived in fact from the Latin term denoting an area or large piece of land governed by Roman rule.
The diocese of Gozo was born on September 16, 1864. However, the attempts for its elevation were not born on that very same day. For decades - actually almost for a century before - the people of Gozo had been trying to have Gozo made into a separate diocese. Victoria parish priest Dun Saver Cassar, a Gozitan patriot at heart, had already dreamt that Gozo should be separated from the diocese of Malta.
The Bishops of Malta hardly visited the island of Calypso; they hardly lived on Malta itself. Gozo also had its spiritual needs, however it had no seminary, so those young men who felt called to serve the Church had to travel to Malta and attend the seminary in Mdina.
It was people like Sir Adrian Dingli and Dun Pietru Pace who worked mostly for the new diocese.
Dun Pietru Pace was an eminent Gozitan cleric, hailing from St George's parish and serving also as an altar-server. He knew the ecclesiastical situation on the island inside out. He had the advantage of studying in Rome, in what was the Collegio Romano of the Jesuits, known now as the Università Gregoriana. It was within the walls of this prestigious university that young Pietru Pace befriended those who would help him in declaring the new diocese.
Of course, not everybody on the main island liked the idea. The elevation of a new diocese on the island of Gozo meant more independence for the little island. However, there were valid reasons for its existence. Those who are interested in the process of the becoming of the Gozo diocese can read Joseph Bezzina's Religion And Politics In A Crown Colony. The Gozo-Malta Story 1798-1864, which describes minutely the entire history of the diocese from its very roots.
Among those against the idea were people who should have been actually in its favour: Gozo-born Mgr Gaetano Pace Forno, the Bishop of Malta, worked against the concept of a diocese for Gozo. This did a lot of damage because in Rome Cardinal Giacomo Antontelli, who was initially in favour of the idea - after receiving correspondence from Mgr Pace Forno - changed his mind. Pietru Pace and the Gozo intelligentsia had to work harder. But as the Maltese proverb goes, Dak li jrid Alla ma jħassru hadd (Nobody can annul what is willed by God)!
On August 12, 1862, 18 citizens of Gozo addressed a petition to Pope Pius IX asking for a "residential bishop". Then, on August 15, another petition followed, this time from the Chapter of Gozo's collegiate church, the future cathedral. In 1863, Bishop Pace Forno found himself cornered when the Holy See obliged him to ask for an auxiliary bishop; the candidate was Rabat parish priest Dun Mikiel Franġisk Buttigieg. Then, at the very end, with the help of the British Governor of Malta and his party who visited Rome in person, Pius IX was persuaded.
Word that Gozo had become a diocese arrived on the island on the September 23, 1864. However, the Consistorial decree of the elevation was read to the Pope on the 16th of the month and the new bull was named Singulare Amore; the diocese of Gozo had been established, the ecclesia Gaudisiensis had been made into a diocese.
Until this day, every September 16, the bells of all churches of Gozo ring joyfully to remind all and sundry of that glorious day when Supreme Pontiff Blessed Pope Pius IX - the Pope of the Immaculata - had elevated Gozo into a diocese in its own right.