In his first letter, St Peter exhorts the elders: “Tend the flock of God that is your charge, … willingly, … eagerly, [by] being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet 5, 2-4). This text must surely have been speaking to Fr Emmanuel Barbara OFM Cap’s heart since the day he was appointed Bishop of the Malindi Diocese in Kenya by Pope Benedict XVI.
Fr Emmanuel was born on October 27, 1949, in Gżira. On September 19, 1965 he entered the Capuchin novitiate while on September 26 of the subsequent year, he made his temporal vows. After seven years of academic preparation, he was ordained deacon on August 5, 1973 and a priest on July 20, 1974 at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.
Soon after his ordination, Fr Emmanuel fulfilled various posts within the Maltese Capuchin Province. He was a vicar priest at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in San Ġwann (1974-76). His intellectual talent paved for him the way to study in Rome for the Licentiate in Moral Theology at the Accademia Alfonsiana (1976-78). On his return to Malta, Fr Emmanuel taught moral theology at the INSERM (National Institutum Studiorum Ecclesiasticorum Religiosorum Melitensium) for 11 years. Furthermore, he was the rector of the same institute (1981-83). Fr Emmanuel was also a hospital chaplain at St Luke’s Hospital (1978-80) and local superior of the Xemxija Capuchin fraternity (1980-83).
In both 1983 and 1989 Provincial Chapters, the Capuchin electors chose him as their Provincial Minister.
After faithfully accomplishing such an exhaustive ministry, Providence called Fr Emmanuel to “put out into deep and let down his nets” (see Luke 5, 4) in Kenya. Except for the two-year period in which Fr Emmanuel studied extensively for his doctorate in Moral Theology at the Accademia Alfonsiana in Rome, the Kenya mission consolidated him in the gospel attitude of serving. In fact, in this vast country he served as a director of formation (1990-96), caretaker of the formation house in Lang’ata (1990-92), Professor at Tangaza College in Nairobi (1990-92, 1994-99), first Vice-Provincial of Kenya (1996-99), and Professor of the Faculty of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi (1999-2008). When he returned to Malta in 2008, Fr Emmanuel served as a spiritual director in a secondary school, teacher to young religious foreigners who live in Malta, Provincial Minister for the third time since 2010 and president of the European Capuchins Conference (CENOC).
Since a bishop’s vocation and mission in the Church are both Trinitarian in nature, so must be his personal spiritual life. But in his relationship with God, the bishop never lives alone. Because, as St Irenaeus stated, “the bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop,” the bishop becomes holy only with and through his people. In fact, the 1973 Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, Ecclesiae Imago, reminds every bishop, (Fr Emmanuel included), that he “should combine in himself, at one and the same time, the qualities of both a brother and a father, a disciple of Christ and a teacher of the faith, a son of the Church and, in a certain way, a father of the Church, for he ministers the spiritual birth of Christians (1 Cor. 4:15)” (§14).
Brother Emmanuel, may you fashion your episcopal life and ministry on these words! Ad multos annos brother!