Latin community remembers Fr Umberto Barato

FRANCISCAN Umberto Barato, who died last Tuesday at the age of 85, is remembered by the Latin community in Cyprus for being constructive and cooperative, Benito Mantovani, representative of the Latin religious group said on Thursday.

“I had known him for 25 years when he was transferred from Rhodes to Cyprus,” he told the Cyprus Mail. “We had a close cooperation. He was soon promoted to being the attache of the embassy of the Holy See and vicar general of the Latin Catholic church, which is the representative of the Patriarch of Jerusalem.”

“He was very constructive, for example he helped the Franciscan sisters in Nicosia to establish a centre for foreign workers.”

“Two years ago, he retired due to age and had since lived in a monastery in Larnaca.”

The funeral will be held in Holy Cross Church, Nicosia, on Monday, December 28, at 2pm, and the burial at the Catholic cemetery ‘Terra Santa’ in Larnaca.

Instead of flowers, donations will be collected for Arodaphnousa Centre and other charitable centres.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.