A FORMER Army sergeant from Teesside has been appointed the Roman Catholic priest for the Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic.
Father Michael McPartland, 62, will take responsibility for the pastoral care of 10,000 people on the Islands and their neighbours, St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
He said: "I am very excited about it. I will have spiritual responsibility for more than a third of the surface area of the globe - most of it water."
Middlesbrough-born Fr McPartland, who is living in New Barnet, Hertfordshire, until he flies to the Falklands in October, said he would feel at home with the military personnel he would encounter there.
''I have an understanding of the culture of the military because of my 11 years in the Army," he said.
He will be based at St Mary's Church, Port Stanley, and will also say mass at the barracks church, St Cuthbert's.
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