Archbishop-elect Mgr Paul Cremona will next month take over the helm of the Maltese Church. Steve Mallia found out whether he is ready to navigate stormy waters.
On December 1, 1976, a flat on Tower Road, Sliema, could be bought for Lm9,000, a three-course Sunday lunch at a quality restaurant cost Lm1.75, and Eddie Fenech Adami was still waiting for his opportunity to seize the Nationalist Party leadership. Squeezed into a single column on the far left hand side of The Times' front page - vying for attention with eight other news items - was a tiny report announcing that Mgr Giuseppe Mercieca had two days earlier been appointed the new Archbishop.
The contrast of Mgr Cremona's public induction as the new head of Malta's Episcopal conference could not have been more stark. The kind of terse statement that has characterised the Curia for years was ripped to shreds in less than an hour as a feast unfurled; of information and forthcoming. His opening words were fresh enough to pierce a gaping hole in the cobwebs that have gathered in the musty rooms of the Church's headquarters, and the din of his actions caused them to come tumbling down. Armed with the weapons used by many a successful conqueror - surprise and charm - he flung his open arms out to the people and, so far at least, they have thrown theirs straight back.
Truth be told, they hardly know what's hit them. And 30 years is a long wait. In that time there have been six general elections, three Popes, five US Presidents, EU membership - and flats on Tower Road don't cost Lm9,000 any more. The world has changed, and so has Malta; the accusation is that the Church hasn't.
"The Church has changed," counters Mgr Cremona, "but it has a definite message, and must adapt itself to the culture so it can get this message across. No culture has remained intact over the years. The question I would put, though I don't know the answer, is will this kind of capitalistic culture last forever? If so, it will be the only one in history, so I doubt it. It would be easier for us to say we think with the culture. We can't. The message has to come across as the Lord has given it to us."
The 60-year-old Archbishop-elect has a difficult task on his hands. Mass attendance has gone into freefall in recent years, with an increasing number of young people choosing to spend Sunday morning watching television rather than planting their knees on a cold marble floor. "Obviously, I will attempt to bring them back because that's part of my mission; by making the Church in itself more welcoming - because the kind of celebrations we have must be more in tune with the times." He readily admits a number of services are dull, but says too many parishioners only focus their attention on God when they are in need. "If this is the kind of relationship they have, how can people come to Mass? It's only when people want a closer friendship that the Mass begins to make sense."
Almost every response from Mgr Cremona contains two seemingly conflicting elements: the spiritual and the practical. But given his background this is hardly surprising.
The son of a clerk in the British services and a housewife, he was the middle sibling - he has an elder brother and a younger sister - in what he describes as a happy childhood. Despite what he describes as a totally un-Dominican upbringing, he joined the order when he was barely 17 because he "felt something" in his heart. He went on to obtain a doctorate in moral theology in Rome 11 years later, and served as a prior in Rabat for six years as well as being parish priest in Guardamangia and Sliema. "I once told an Anglican woman that I don't know why I became a Dominican, but I know why I'm happy now."
His smiles and easy-going manner reflect, outwardly at least, an immense ease with himself. Like many other priests, Mgr Cremona had his doubts before joining - he contemplated the idea of married life and had a circle of friends of both sexes but never dated - and even after, "but my vocation always overcame this kind of thought. The call entails an element of offering. It's not just a question of one not marrying, the issue is that instead of loving a family, can you give your love to serving the Church? That was the offering I made."
He entered the order with Mgr George Frendo, who was nominated Auxiliary Bishop in Albania last September. "I think we influenced each other a lot and made a journey together," he says. Naturally, Mgr Cremona travelled to Albania to watch the consecration of his great friend, and was overheard passing a remark about what a nightmare being a bishop must be. "It is a nightmare, and it was a worse nightmare when it came along," he laughs.
"There's a difference between being a politician and being a Bishop, because a politician prepares himself. He's striving for it, he's working for it. Up till the day before you're appointed, you don't even reflect on it. There were some people - though it was never mentioned on the media - saying that my name was among the others. But when people spoke to me about it, I said 'it's nothing' because I didn't want to go into the realities. Then suddenly you're faced with this fact and have to begin to think about what it means, what it will entail. That's why it's a nightmare."
He got a sense that his name was in the hat, "along with many others", earlier in the year, when the Apostolic Nuncio went to search for him in Rabat. "Actually I wasn't there because I had already been posted as a parish priest to Sliema. Then we met but the only thing he said was 'what do you think about the Church today'. That's all."
And the Nuncio was not having much better luck when he tried to get hold of Mgr Cremona on the Monday before the official announcement was made. "I had gone and then found a message to contact him. On the morrow, the secretary phoned again and said 'the Nuncio wants to see you this evening'. I told him I had to check whether I'm free and he said: 'even if you're not free, you have to come'."
When Mgr Cremona got to Rabat, he was told the news - that on December 2 he would be named Malta's next Archbishop. "At that moment I asked him for 24 or 48 hours just to think about it, and he said 'if you take it as obedience to the Holy Father isn't that enough for you?'. So that was it. I don't think I have ever said no to anything my superiors told me, even when I became parish priest. In fact, I have never chosen anything I did in my life. I don't think it's difficult for me to acclimatise myself to people and situations, but this is a new venture."
And one, clearly, he is going to need some time to settle into. "I have some idea of what the Church should be about, a vague idea of how I should go about things, but obviously I have to meet with a range of people from different sections of society and the Church and then I hope to clear my ideas about specific things. Obviously, I have a general idea of the kind of Church I wish to have and about the kind of messages I wish to give to society so they can reflect upon them."
One mission he did declare during his opening press conference was to build bridges. If he was not, as newspaper cartoonists have suggested to his amusement, talking about the stone and steel kind, who does he want to build bridges with exactly? "Everybody," he says, "even in the fold". It is clear that he is also talking about priests he would like to mend fences with, though he sets his stall out immediately by saying that however painful it may be, he will say no when the situation requires and that "obedience means obedience sometimes".
"But I want to be very close to them and to give them courage - they need it at the moment - because if I do that they will give more courage to the people in their care. One of the reasons we become demoralised is because we tend to compare the kind of reality we are living today with the kind of reality we had 50 or 60 years back when most Maltese accepted whatever priests said. This is not a proper model today and the reality is different. The priestly vocation cannot ever be reactive, it has to be proactive like Christ. He had a mission, he lived it, whatever the response. Actually he ended up on the cross. We have to accept that," he says, seemingly not afraid, metaphorically at least, of ending up there himself.
Certainly, the first indications are that the majority of priests have welcomed him; a factor not to be taken for granted given his Dominican roots. Mgr Cremona is keeping his counsel for the time being on whether he will be a new Archbishop with a new team - "I have to reflect on that," he says - but he would like to surround himself with people who are frank with him. "I want that feedback. Obviously, it doesn't mean I will accept everything people tell me. But I will listen to it, reflect upon it and let it enlighten me. Then obviously I have to take a decision."
He has not yet decided where he will live, though he is adamant that it will be with a small community of diocesan priests "who will be collaborators in one way or another". It is with them that he can discuss how to handle thorny topics that are being thrown at the Church every day: abortion, divorce and contraception, to mention but a few. Yet, the issue, Mgr Cremona says, is not so much about discussion as what the Church teaches; for example, it can never depart from the position that human life must not be tampered with.
With regard to divorce, however, he adopts a more contemplative approach - reiterating what Pope Benedict XVI said in a recent encyclical - that it is not the role of the Church to build "a just state" but that of citizens and politicians. "The responsibility of the Church is to put across the Christian message into this cauldron of ideas which the Church believes is necessary for society to reflect upon. Is it inevitable or not inevitable? I don't know. But what the Church proposes is that if you believe in a stable family, you try and defend it."
While Mgr Cremona does not think the concept of working mothers is incompatible with this, he stresses that a couple must "make a deeper reflection than before" if they decide to have children. "You can't say my professional life is there and then the child gets what remains - the duty should be shared between the couple. Life is not as simple as it was before, and it would be very selfish for a man to say both of us work, but then all the work at home has to be done by the woman."
These are words that will go down well with the media, which he believes has a tendency to censor what the Church has to say. "I would like to see then give a proper hearing to what the Church wants to propose - not impose. Yet, some of the media try to water down what the Church says and I think that's unjust. You can't say that now because our culture has a certain set of values; they are all the values we need. So the Church is proposing values that society should reflect upon, even though it may say 'I don't want them'. What I ask of people and politicians is to at least reflect upon it, without prejudice that closes their ears to what the Church has to say."
Yet, when asked whether he is happy with the use of the media made by the Church in Malta, he replies frankly: "I wish it would talk more". Which is good news. If he continues to speak this sort of language, there is little doubt that more people will be prepared to listen.