On March 11 together with my companions in Malta I celebrated the 50th anniversary of my priesthood. Really and truly, one must, like in all walks of life, utter wth deep faith: “Thanks be to God.”
Apart from the basic principles of the Gospel and Church teaching, two thoughts inspired me during these years. One, I inherited from our spiritual director at the seminary, Fr Joseph Bernard, a person of extraordinary intelligence and deep spirituality. He used to tell us: “God will not condemn us because of the errors committed,, but because of what we could have done, and omitted to do”.
The other thought is of Karl Rahner: the most important Grace God can give you, is to die, still searching for the truth. I do not mean to say that I lived these two values to the full, but I can state that they passed on to me a sense of urgency, and, even if gradually, helped me to avoid pre-conceived ideas and judgements.
To me, becoming a priest meant becoming a missionary. However, circumstances forced me to remain in Malta for 17 years, and I do not regret this. I learnt a lot from my priest and lay friends. Let me name just one: Major John Micallef who revealed to me well at the begininng that he was responsible for the ‘Roamer’ column in this paper – a secret which I carried with me until his death. He was instrumental for my participation in important reforms within and outside the Church. He had a deep respect for the Church.
When I was a seminarian I used to send a letter to the press periodically in an anoymous manner. This led to the creation in this paper, together with a group of priests and laity, of a page entitled ‘Catholic Outlook’ which turned out to be very popular and, let me say, important.
During this period I had a very fruitful pastoral life in St Julian’s, jointly with my close friend the late Fr Philip Demarco, when Mgr John Galea was parish priest. Really and truly a golden age. I accepted the invitation of Mgr Lawrence Gatt to help in the administration of the Seminary; it was a difficult time for Church schools in general but we survived. In the midst of all this after a four year wait I received my visa to go to Brazil where I stayed for 33 years.
In Brazil I was involved in parish life in a city called Sarandi, where pastoral activity was based on comunidades ecclesiais de base (Church base communities), which from a parish of about 40,000 developed into four parishes consisting of 100,000 people.
Jointly, I got involved in the Land Pastoral Commission and the Landless Peasants Movement. Both institutions were instrumental, against all odds, in helping 8,000 families in the state of Parana, and about 250,000 families in the whole of Brazil to gain a farm. I am preparing a book on this achievment in my region.
During all this time I had excellent relations with my priest friends, diocesan and religious, as well as the Maltese Franciscan Sisters. I was glad that when I went to Rondonia in the Amazon for two years to help serve in a twin parish belonging to my diocese Maringa, I met Brazilian Franciscan Sisters who belonged to the Maltese Congregation.
I have one single disappointment in all these years. I wrote a book about the participation of Maltese missionaries in some 70 countries, entitled The Maltese Missionary Experience but this was not sufficiently backed by the Maltese Church.