Both a tribute and recognition

The felicitous announcement that Fr Prospero Grech OSA is being elevated to the purple evoked an incident harking back many, many summers ago. It was mid-August, sometime after the late Archbishop Emmanuel Gerada was elbowed out of the Maltese ecclesiastical scenario. I recall very distinctly it was Sunday, the feast of St Caetan, and Ħamrun, from where I hail – by adoption – was en fete. As was my practice I phoned my mother to say hello. Somehow, I found myself listening to a rather arcane conversation, presumably from the sacristy of St Caetan parish church. The matter in discussion was the rumours then doing the rounds about the eventual successor to Mgr Gerada.

It was too good an opportunity to forego, and against my wife’s severe admonition to desist from eavesdropping, I did not put down the receiver... and followed the terse conversation. I came to know that there were two persons being tipped for Mgr Gerada’s succession. One of them was the late Dominican Canonist Mark Said, then at the Angelicum, Rome, and the other was the internationally acknowledged biblical scholar Prof. Grech, also Rome based

During the conversation it was recounted that Mgr Michael Gonzi vetoed both nominations; Mgr Gonzi wanted a diocesan secular priest not a friar for the job. When many years later at the Dar tal-Kleru I had occasion to mention this episode to Fr Said, he just smiled very significantly but rather impishly I must say, and said nothing!

When the history of the Church in Malta will be written, perhaps certain manouevres behind the scenes may come to light. It is not very likely; Godfrey Wettinger once lamented about the secrecy overhanging the Curia Archives. Perhaps conditions have changed.

I am ready to concede that Mgr Gonzi’s blackballing the nomination of Fr Said might well have been prompted by his desire for a diocesan priest, but in Prof. Grech’s nomination I harbour an unfounded suspicion that there could have been a more sinister reason.

It was well-known that the Craigs of Vittoriosa were rather Labour inclined. In fact the late Moses Gatt, one of Labour’s brightest luminaries, was a very close relative of the Craigs. It was from the lips of the late Prof. Alfred J Craig that I first heard about Marx’s famous or infamous dictum, “from each according to his means and to each according to his needs”! Now Fr Grech being another very close relative of the Craigs could very well have nourished Labour sympathies. And at that time, such a suspicion was dangerous. Happily, I like to think that these are things of the past.

With hindsight I realise now that Malta at that time was enduring a tsunami in that while the rest of Christiandom was basking in the glow of Vatican II, it was torn asunder by the Gonzi/Mintoff controversy. Cesaero-papalism, contrary to the beliefs of the immortal John XXIII, regrettably ruled the day here. But even then, like tiny Malta John XXIII had to endure patiently the ruthless offensive mounted by his own Roman Curia.

The late Cardinal Augustin Bea SJ, possibly the main positive force after John was called to pastures new, should never be forgotten. Those were the days, not just of the off-putting Cardinals Ottaviani, Browne, Tardini, Ruffini and Siri, but happily of the visionary Cardinals Koenig of Vienna, Alfrink of Utrecht, Lienart of Lille, Leger of Montreal, Suenens of Belgium and Lercaro of Bologna, along with thinkers the like of Karl Rahner SJ, M-Dominque Chenu OP, Edward Schillebeeks OP, Yves Congar OP, Henry de Lubac SJ, Jean Danielou SJ, the young Hans Kung and the equally young Joseph Ratzinger.

One of the minor players then was the late Igino Cardinale.

Malta had occasion to appreciate the tact of Mgr Cardinale, then the head of protocol at the Secretariat of State. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the truce between Mgr Gonzi and Dom Mintoff and therefore well-known to the late Archbishop Gerada. Along with Archbishop (later Cardinal) Angelo Dell’Acqua, and with Mgr Loris Capovilla Pope John’s private secretary, Mgr Cardinale under the inspired leadership of Bea, spearheaded the progressive wing upon whom John XXIII placed much of his hopes for Aggiornamento.

These rambling musings of mine hardly bear directly on Prof. Fr Grech’s nomination; but his nomination blackballing by Mgr Gonzi, if true, most certainly reflects an epoch in our Church history best forgotten.

Perhaps it is worth pondering, on this great occasion for all of us Maltese and Gozitans, on the provocative words of John XXIII when inaugurating the Council, in that “the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing. The way in which it is presented is another”. If Pope John XXIII’s words were relevant 50 odd years ago, they still strike a very sensitive chord now, to those who care and cherish his legacy.

I would like to think that Prof. Fr Grech’s nomination, apart from being a well-merited personal tribute, inaugurates some recognition from Rome, to this tormented Pauline island of ours.

A most hearty ad multos annos to Prof. Fr Grech!