Having dedicated most of his life to pastoral work in developing countries, Fr John Caruana has just released his book, The Maltese Missionary Experience. Peter Farrugia finds out how his vocation shaped this priest’s life.
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John Caruana has been a priest for some four decades and throughout that time has pursued a calling to missionary work. Following 13 years as vice-parish priest in St Julian’s, Caruana left for Brazil in 1984. He was soon appointed to serve the people as parish priest of the Nossa Senhora das Graças parish in Sarandi, serving a population of some 40,000 people (now closer to 85,000).
Caruana’s pastoral dedication to fostering Church-based communities is grounded in the growth of grass-roots social movements, invested in the dignity and well-being of each individual. After a couple of years in Malta working on his book The Maltese Missionary Experience, Caruana is once again back in his Brazilian parish, where he now serves as vice-parish priest.
“I always admired the missionary vocation and am positively impressed with how the Maltese Church continues to respond to this appeal of the Gospel. I remember with affection how, when I was still a teenager, the Jesuit Fathers prepared to leave Malta to serve the Gospel in far off India. The atmosphere we felt was one of celebration and, at that early age, I already believed that my call to the priesthood meant being a missionary.”
This is confirmed when Caruana recounts the story of his meeting with Bishop Mario Grech, four years ago, in Parana, Brazil. While explaining the type of humanitarian apostolate they practised there, the bishop suddenly asked Caruana, “Who else knows about this good work you’re doing?” In that moment the first seeds of Caruana’s book took root. It was agreed that the Church in Malta has a duty, with all its missionaries, religious men and women, diocesan priests and lay people, to somehow give a summary of the valuable experience shared by the Maltese Church in its work overseas.
Archbishop Paul Cremona agreed, and Caruana began writing immediately. The result is a book of varied textures, at once thought-provoking and encouraging, a deeper look at the sacrifices made and the triumphs achieved in reaching out to bring a sense of solidarity to some of the most oppressed and poverty- stricken regions of the world.
It is a call to leave family, friends and country and follow Christ to serve the poor
In the introduction to the book Caruana writes: “When this daunting task came to my mind, I never imagined it would open such a wide horizon of world-wide contacts. I met bishops serving in different countries and environments, I met seminary rectors and vicar generals, all excellent administrators on parochial and diocesan levels. As one of them summed it, ‘We have really and truly built all this from scratch and our hands have become callous’.”
It is this determination, despite the odds, to provide the presence of Christian compassion in the midst of often insurmountable odds that characterises the men and women in Caruana’s book.
“I met others who made decisive contributions in the social field, participating directly in structural reforms for agriculture and the urban environment. I met a colleague who was involved in the defence of human rights in Latin America and another who helped thousands of families gain a piece of land on which to sustain themselves, making land reform a reality.
“ It was humbling to meet a young priest working deep in the Amazon forest, and notwithstanding the enormous difficulties, he had found a way to study to become a doctor to better serve the marginalised sick.”
The book’s 70 chapters contain a record of the experiences lived by missionaries in various countries. “I put two basic questions to every missionary or community I met,” says Caruana. “Firstly, how did you and your community end up on this mission? And secondly, what type of work do you on your own, or with your community, try to embark upon? For these people, missionary experience and the Christian way of life are intrinsically the same thing.”
Confronted by the difficult issue of cultural sensitivity and inculturation, Caruana offers a level response. “In our time, after the Second Vatican Council, great popes like Paul VI attempted to answer all the questions that the modern world, and especially the post-colonial world, had to offer.
“Pope Francis continues this legacy, calling for opinions drawn from all five continents with the express wish that he wants to know, through them, the perspectives of each individual culture and social group. That is true and respectful inculturation indeed.
“A positive point should be attributed to the Church of Malta which, despite its internal contradictions and divisions, succeeds in passing on us all this difficult call of the Gospel,” says Caruana. “It is a call to leave family, friends and country and follow Christ to serve the poor, sick and despairing.”
It is interesting to note that throughout the book, it is the groundbreaking contribution of nuns and sisters that paves the way for subsequent missions – the powerful contribution of Maltese and Gozitan women.
“The Church in Malta and Gozo has given birth to a heritage that has seen its members grow and flourish and bear abundant fruit in the fertile land of the five continents.”
The New Evangelisation, promised by Pope Benedict and increasingly actualised by Pope Francis, will succeed in its new spirituality only so far as the Church succeeds in transmitting its truth to future generations.
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