Fabricating history

Some people fabricate history. On September 8, the St George basilica website carried the following information:

"According to 18th century historian Gian Piet Agius de Soldanis, the veneration of Il-Bambina was introduced into Gozo through the parish of St George, the ancient parish of Gozo."

This information is fallacious because in the Middle Ages, Rabat had already had the most senior parish of the suburb of the Castle dedicated to the birth of Il-Bambina and this was the parish of Sancta Maria (infra), as referred to in ancient documents.

This church, now known as Ta' Savina, is still dedicated to the birth of the Virgin Mary. Further down, the St George's website carried the following paragraph:

"In fact, St George's parish used to possess a statue of the Child Mary and Canon Agius de Soldanis mentioned it in his manuscript.

"It is probable that when the parish of Xaghra was erected, it was dedicated to the Child Mary, rather to St Anthony the Abbot whose village cult preceded that of the Blessed Virgin, because the new parish inherited the benefices tied to the Virgin Mary's cult in St George's parish."

So there you are! The veneration of Il-Bambina was not introduced into Gozo through St George's parish, but it was simply revamped through the statue mentioned by de Soldanis.

The other information in this paragraph is simply false.

When the Xaghra parish was erected on April 28, 1688, it was dedicated to St Anthony the Abbot. This was also attested by de Soldanis himself.

When the first new Xaghra parish was built by the Sicilians, it was, initially dedicated to Our Lady of Graces. It was only on October 9, 1692 that this dedication was changed to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.

The Xaghra parish church had no right to inherit anything from St George's parish church.

The "benefices" referred to in this paragraph are nothing but land property which Bishop Cocco Palermi reserved for himself to be passed on to the four new parishes that were being dismembered from the matrice of the Assumption before doing away with the parochial authority of St George's church which thereafter became a sort of vice-parish of the matrice.

So these land properties were no "benefices" at all and had nothing to do with the veneration of Il-Bambina or the dedication of the Xaghra parish church to the Nativity of Our Lady.