Pope Francis had nominated a Maltese, Mgr Peter Baldacchino, 53, as Auxiliary Bishop of Miami.

Mgr Baldacchino has been serving as chancellor in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

He was born in Sliema on December 5, 1960 and studied at St Francis School in Msida, Mt Carmel College and Umberto Calosso trade school in Sta Venera before becoming a technician in a bottling plant.

He became a seminarian and then a priest in Newark USA in 1996.

Mgr Baldacchio speaks all three of the Miami church's three main languages: English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.He is expected to be ordained bishop on 19 March, the first anniversary of Francis' inauguration of his Petrine ministry.

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