A worthy son of Malta and the Church

The announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that Fr Prospero Grech, a Maltese Augustinian friar, will be made a cardinal was met with great joy by the Maltese people and by the local Church.

His election to Cardinal and the honour bestowed on him on December 13 make up for the unfair treatment he received- Laurence Mizzi

Fr Grech is only the second Maltese to be raised to the purple. I was particularly delighted with the news because, having met Fr Grech just over 13 years ago to interview him for the Church newspaper Il-Ġens I knew that the honour was more than deserved.

The new cardinal’s academic qualifications and the important positions he has held at the Vatican (not to mention within the Augustinian order) are indeed outstanding. I was no less impressed with some of the experiences he shared with me during the interview.

Fr Grech had told me that he was a great personal friend of Cardinal Albino Luciani when the latter was still Patriarch of Venice. The cardinal used to take up residence at the Augustinian College in Rome whenever he was in the capital to attend meetings of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

“We used to celebrate Mass together and have lunch together. Cardinal Luciani had a great sense of humour, although he was rather reserved.”

Just before the cardinal left for the 1978 conclave following the death of Pope Paul VI, Fr Grech had asked him half-jokingly what he would have for his first lunch after he became Pope. “The cardinal burst out laughing. He never even considered the possibility that he could be elected.”

The last words Fr Grech told Cardinal Luciani before he left for the conclave were: “I won’t say goodbye because it’s in bad taste. I won’t say arrivederci because it’s even worse. I can only say God bless you.”

Cardinal Luciani, of course, was elected Pope and took the names of his two immediate predecessors. The very first letter Pope John Paul I wrote soon after he was elected in August 1978 was one of thanks to Fr Grech for the hospitality and friendship he had always received at St Monica’s Augustinian College.

When I asked Fr Grech about the rumours that went round regarding the Pope’s sudden death, Fr Grech dismissed them out of hand as “absolute rubbish... works of fantasy”.

The day before Cardinal Luciani left for the conclave Fr Grech drove him to a Rome hospital to have a tooth pulled out.On coming out, evidently greatly relieved, he told Fr Grech that when he returned to Venice after the conclave he would go see a consultant because, he told him, one of his legs was badly swollen, and according to his personal doctor, that could be related to heart problems.

Fr Grech told me he had heard from Pope John Paul I’s own secretary that soon after his election, when the cardinals went to kiss his hands as a sign of loyalty he told the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, who was to succeed him as John Paul II: “You should be here, not me.” According to Fr Grech, Albino Luciani was “humility personified”.

During the time of the conclave that elected Paul VI (Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the Archbishop of Milan) in 1963, Fr Grech was secretary to Mgr Van Lierde, then the Pope’s sacristan. As such he was ‘closed behind bars’ with him during the conclave. Just two hours before the Pope was elected, Cardinal Montini asked him to hear his confession. “I hope I wasn’t too harsh in the penance I gave him.”

Pope John Paul II occasionally invited Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, the present Pontiff, Benedict XVI, who was then Secretary of the Congregation of the Faith, to lunch.

Fr Grech and other members of the congregation would also be invited. After John Paul II’s first visit to Malta the Pope’s secretary told him how greatly impressed the Pope had been with the reception he had received: “unsurpassed” was the way he described it.

Fr Grech was also involved in negotiations between the Malta Labour Party and the Vatican when attempts were made to solve the island’s politico-religious dispute of the 1960s.

Fr Grech had been informed that Dom Mintoff, the Labour leader, wanted to start discussions with the Vatican about pending issues and asked him to intervene so that negotiations could start.

Fr Grech accepted the invitation and immediately informed the Vatican’s Secretariat of State about this request. He was asked to tell Mr Mintoff to put down in writing what the MLP leader was proposing. Subsequently Fr Grech met Mr Mintoff and returned to the Vatican with the proposals.

After examining them, the Secretariat of State told Fr Grech that the proposals could be a basis for discussion. He was then instructed to inform Archbishop Gonzi what had happened so that negotiations could start. as “we don’t want to do anything behind the Archbishop’s back.”

However, when Fr Grech informed the Archbishop in writing and explained what had happened, Mgr Gonzi was furious: “How can all this happen behind my back?!” he wanted to know.

Mr Mintoff was no less infuriated when he learned of the Maltese bishops’ reactions to his plans which had been made public. Both the Archbishop and Mr Mintoff were less than grateful to Fr Grech.

According to reliable sources Fr Grech’s involvement in the whole matter could have cost the prominent Biblical scholar his chance to be nominated auxiliary bishop of Malta as he was considered, wrongly I believe, to be too close to Mintoff.

However, his election to the College of Cardinals and the honour of Companion of the National Order of Merit bestowed on him on December 13 by President George Abela, in the name of the government and people of Malta. more than make up for the unfair treatment he received from all sides.

Fr Grech is a worthy son of Malta and the Church.

Ad multos annos, Eminenza...

Ahead of his investiture as cardinal during the consistory at the Vatican on February 18, Fr Prospero Grech will be consecrated bishop on Wednesday, February 8, at 6 p.m. at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta by Archbishop Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, who until recently was bishop of Alessandria, Italy, and who will also be made a cardinal on February 18. Joining Mgr Versaldi in Fr Grech’s episcopal consecration will be the Archbishop, Mgr Paul Cremona, and the Bishop of Gozo, Mgr Mario Grech.