A long-standing friend and colleague of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, Prof. Daniel Massa started working on the late philosopher’s authorised biography in 2005. He shares an exclusive excerpt on Fr Peter’s early years from the as yet unpublished book.
Peter was born on April 26, 1936, in Valletta. Late. Troublesome from the very start!
And so I came to think that if I could not be a clown, the next best thing was to become a priest
The legend that Peter was guaranteed to arrive late for every single occasion started when he did not make it on time for his birthing cannot be confirmed.
What is confirmed is what Peter himself wrote in 1958 in his CV on a paper napkin under the seal of Archbishop Michael Gonzi and duly delivered to Cardinal Montini (later Pope Paul VI) that Peter Serracino Inglott was born on the 26th day of April 1936... The very next day this squirming newborn slipped out of his mother’s soapy hands and fell on his head, on the dented tiles right next to his two-year-old sister sucking chess pawns on the floor.
No matter, just a bad bruise, a loud squeal, and perhaps not surprisingly an initial dislike for too much soap and water! However, as his mother was fond of reminding Peter, although he had been singularly blessed with a hard head, “the effects of that accident have been visible ever since”.
His worried godparents took him for the christening ceremony in St Paul’s church, 200 metres down the road. The celebrant earnestly prayed over the child, that God may enlighten his heart in purity to see the way of eternal life.
Then he proceeded to anoint his bruised head: “I anoint you Peter, Paul, Publius, Carmel, John, Felix in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
He was baptised under the statue of St Paul – whose contorted figure symbolises “the Thomist dramatic view of reality” – which as Peter was to realise years later, “looks at the world from the foot of the Cross where Christ is born only to be crucified and to rise again in glory”.
Then came the war and hunger. The Serracino family moved to the smaller island of Gozo. Peter remembers following his mother to the fields at Żebbuġ to buy vegetables directly from the field.
Peter does not recall eating meat from 1940 to 1943… except a thin slice of corned beef when his father Oscar crossed over to Gozo for the weekend. Formal schooling was forgotten: “There was great disruption… I hardly ever went to school. Father got us an abacus to help Miriam and me with addition and subtraction.”
Peter’s grandfather taught him some Latin. His mother insisted Peter serve Mass in rival churches. This riled then Gozo Bishop Michael Gonzi. Peter recalled: “We met Mgr Gonzi in the Square. He asked why my mother urged me to do so. She replied: ‘Peter likes serving Mass. I am sure he’ll be a priest one day. He has a miniature altar – he’s always fitting candlesticks and candles, polishing censers.’ Mgr Gonzi suggested rather impishly: ‘That looks more like a call to be a sacristan than a call to be a priest.’ My mother was not amused. I was only five then. Except for my mother, it was not seriously assumed I’d be a priest.”
After the war, 10-year-old Peter accompanied his father to Rome. He was so impressed by a “clown-tiger-donkey act” at Togni Circus that he convinced himself he wanted to become a circus clown. His father told him that a real clown was necessarily a musical clown.
Peter, who would later become an adept sniffer of paradoxes, knew that while he possessed a very good ear, he was completely unable to pitch his voice. “That frustrated me. And so I came to think that if I could not be a clown, the next best thing was to become a priest.”
Challenged on this strange double-loop conclusion, Fr Peter suggests it is the challenge to his assertion which is indeed strange. “At the time I was already taken by Dante’s idea that human history was a comedy. So the clown is down, he gets up. That is also the priest’s vocation, that’s his call. He suffers rejection and humiliation... but he must rise to meet his Christ. Every Christian meets his Christ in his own way.”
And so Peter entered the Seminary knowing full well that there would be restrictions. Chafing at the bit and wanting to resume his extracurricular activities, sometimes on the sly, he says: “When I joined the Seminary, not being allowed to go to the theatre or cinema was one of the things I could not understand… and there were several occasions when I broke the rules.”
He adds: “I was keen on watching de Sica’s Umberto Di. I could not see why not… so I remember evading the Seminary supervisory system. I watched it at a cinema, not in Valletta, that would have been too risky.”
On another occasion, he accompanied Mgr Pantalleresco, the rector, to the theatre and then on the sly even acted a part in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. When the play was over, Roland Flamini helped Peter wash off his make-up, so that with great celerity he could return to Mgr Pantalleresco, while he was still exchanging small courtesies with other distinguished guests.
In 1956 Peter won a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University. During his stay, Peter attended the Youth Festival in Moscow in July/August 1957 and later visited Greece.
He says: “Back to the ancient shores of the Mediterranean, I came to Greece, and for two days and nights, I climbed the wild-dog infested slopes of Mt Parnassus, with a strange determination, as if I believed I would find there the abode of the gods of Homer. I met instead half-starved shepherds, leading as primitive or existential a life as that described in Homer.”
He added: “I felt this was the call, not of the gods, but of Christ in the heart; a call to pledge myself to the progressive forces of the universe, to strive to do one’s part in the task of uplifting mankind – it does not matter where – not in the name of a doctrine which is simply a hideous caricature of the truth, but of a faith in human solidarity built on Christ. Science and research are today essential to man’s religious progress. This faith I later found shared in Paris.”
This was after Peter had completed his second degree. “I recall the special arch in Archbishop Gonzi’s eyebrows when in 1958 on my return from Oxford, I told him I wanted to go to Paris for my theological studies.”
His Grace had played cat and mouse with Peter’s desire to study theology in that other den of iniquity, which was Paris, but finally conceded to let him go.
The Archbishop’s assent kept ringing in his ears: “My son in Christ, you have survived three years of philosophy in Oxford and still want to become a priest. I’m wondering whether you might not have an especially competent guardian angel, or perhaps two angels instead of one. I trust you to their care! You may go with my blessing... but don’t expect money from this side!”
That seemed to have been Mgr Gonzi’s way of operating. In Paris he was lured to watch The Satin Slipper. Arriving at the Séminaire on the stroke of midnight, making his apologies to rector François Tollu, Peter tried redeeming himself going down to prayers in the chapel.
From that moment I was classified as eccentric. Which proved very useful
What occurred then was a sort of tragicomedy where swing doors played a trick on him and locked him out, and an embarrassed Peter was caught in the quadrangle, and the sleet and snow were about to turn him into a huge snowman.
He rang and rang again, waking up every blessed seminarian, and the very patient rector went down once more in his white night shirt, rubbing his eyes, thinking he was seeing a ghost! He could not believe it was Peter again.
After his initial surprise he put his hand on Peter’s shoulders and classified him as an originaux – an eccentric. Peter recalls: “From that moment I was classified as eccentric. Which proved very useful, for whenever I did something outlandish, on the wrong side of the law perhaps, I got off quite easily. But I always stuck to my original vocation. Not just a clown but a priest.”
Peter was finally ordained priest in Milan on June, 29, 1962.
The funeral of Fr Peter, who died two days ago, is to be held on Friday.