The Archbishop of Malta has opened up about his personal relationship with Pope Francis, saying that he gets calls from the Catholic Church leader that are often full of witty comebacks and humour.

Speaking on TVM’s Xarabank, Archbishop Charles Scicluna revealed how he had become closer to the Pope after his mission to Chile, a sensitive mission that he had been handpicked for by the Pope to handle – and a mission where Scicluna was referred to as “the Catholic Church’s top sexual abuse investigator”.

Scicluna said that the Pope had sent him to seek forgiveness among the Chilean people, and had called him upon his return

However, Scicluna missed the call since the Pope phoned him on an unknown number, and he instead found a message from the Pope.

“He wanted to thank me after my first mission; he called me after I returned but I didn’t answer that time, so he left me a message saying: ‘this is Pope Francis, I want to thank you for the work you conducted, I hope we meet soon,'” smiled the Archbishop.

However, the Pope soon called again, and got through this time

“The Pope called and said: ‘I need you to do another favour for me – I want you to go back to Chile again,'” recounted the Archbishop.

In response to this, the Archbishop told him he had a “week of fire” coming up the next week, as he was really busy and had a tight schedule.

“The Pope quickly replied – ‘I’ll send you some water then,'” the Archbishop laughed.

Before accepting the mission, Scicluna asked the Pope to remove a specific bishop involved in the sexual abuse scandals before he returned, saying the Chilean people would pelt them with rotten eggs if he went back and they hadn’t removed that particular bishop.

To this, the Pope replied: “Even tomatoes they’ll use on you.”

“The Pope, he has a sense of humour,” smiled the Archbishop.

During the TV segment, they also showed a clip of that time the Archbishop’s aspergillum broke while he was blessing Dar Bjorn

What do you think of Malta’s Archbishop?

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]