Cardinal Prosper Grech
Maltese priest and influential Vatican voice who played a leading role in the election of Pope Francis
CARDINAL PROSPER GRECH, who has died aged 94, was, despite being little known until his eighties, one of the most influential Roman Catholic churchmen of his time.
He was born Stanley Grech in Vittoriosa, Malta, on Christmas Eve 1925, the only child of Vincent and Amelia (neé Gatt) and attended Malta’s best school, the Lyceum.
At the age of 18, just after the worst of the Second World War was over for Malta, he joined the Augustinian friars in Rabat. Seven years later he was ordained in the Lateran Basilica in Rome in 1950.
The Augustinian order of friars, which follows the rule written by Saint Augustine of Hippo, specialises in the study of the Fathers of the Church. Often known as Prospero – the strangely Shakespearean designation was his name in religion – Father Prosper was recognised as brilliant, and the next decade was spent in various universities honing his scholarship.
He gained a doctorate in theology in Rome, as well as a higher degree in biblical studies, and then spent time at both Oxford and Cambridge doing research into ancient Semitic languages. Apart from his native Maltese, he was fluent in English, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Thus equipped, he began teaching at the Biblical Institute in Rome, specialising in hermeneutics, the proper way to interpret texts. He gained the reputation of being an exacting teacher.
At the same time, he was also the co-founder of the Augustinianum, a pontifical college specialising in the study of the Church Fathers. In the 1960s he was often called upon to act as master of ceremonies at Papal liturgies. Just before the 1963 conclave that elected him Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini asked Father Grech to hear his confession.
Saint Monica’s, the Augustinian house in Rome where he lived (named after Augustine’s mother), was directly opposite the palace of the former Holy Office, better known as the Inquisition, just beyond Bernini’s colonnade.
Visitors were always shown the room in which Cardinal Albino Luciani slept before his unexpected election as Pope John Paul I. Grech also delighted in pointing out a window from which one could see Cardinal Ratzinger, the Church’s doctrinal watchdog, working at his desk.
In fact Grech, as one of the most highly regarded scholars and teachers in Rome, had already been co-opted as an adviser by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger’s department.
When the same Ratzinger became Pope in 2005, Grech was already nearly 80 years old and retired. It was thus something of a surprise that seven years into his papacy (and only a year before his own retirement) Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was making Grech a cardinal, at the age of 86.
Because cardinals lose their right to vote in a papal election at 80, the appointment was seen as a tribute to Grech’s standing as a scholar, but little else. Grech was only the second Maltese cardinal in history, the first since the 19th century. He accepted the red hat in part because he saw it as an honour for his native land.
However, despite his advanced years, Cardinal Grech was to prove to be far more than a cardinal in name only. Cardinals are meant to be, by Church law, bishops, and the octogenarian Grech was consecrated an Archbishop, and took his new duties seriously.
There was an irony in his late episcopal ordination. As someone who had been in the circle of Dom Mintoff, Malta’s controversial prime minister, Grech had never been completely trusted by Malta’s formidable Archbishop, Sir Michael Gonzi. If it had not been for his connection to Mintoff, it was widely thought that Grech might well have been Archbishop of Malta.
Grech’s late flowering was most marked in the period immediately following Pope Benedict’s surprise resignation. Though Grech was too old to take part in the Conclave that elected Pope Francis, he did take part in the consultations beforehand; moreover, he was chosen to give the last speech that the assembled Cardinals would hear before retiring to vote.
Grech’s speech was, in one sense, strictly Ratzingerian, taking up Benedict’s long-held theme of the necessity of never relativising the importance of Christ for salvation. He also dismissed the scandals that had dogged the closing years of Benedict as of minor importance compared to some of the crises of Church history. At the same time he emphasised that the Church was facing a critical moment, particularly in the West.
Even so, he observed that “the embers of devout faith are kept alive by millions of simple believers who are far from being theologians, but who, from the intimacy of their prayers, reflections and devotions, can give profound advice to their pastors.”
The message from the great theologian Grech was “trust the people”, which was exactly the same approach of Cardinal Bergoglio, the Argentine who was soon to emerge as Pope Francis. While Grech’s speech was not an explicit exhortation to vote for Bergoglio, it could not be read in any other way.
Later, he was to speak of Pope Francis as a breath of fresh air for the Church, echoing a description often used of John XXIII.
Grech was intimidating to some, but by no means pompous, and being a Prince of the Church did not change his character. For many years he had travelled round Rome on a motorcycle; when he drove visitors round the Eternal City, the experience was terrifying.
He was a keen and skilled photographer, taking photographs of various friends, especially women. He took several trips to the Far East, where he delighted in photographing Thai women, who, he said, were the most beautiful on earth.
For many years he was a regular visitor to Switzerland, where he enjoyed a close friendship with a nun. He was also a good friend of Juliet Bingley, wife of the sometime Commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, Sir Alexander Bingley. It was Lady Bingley, also a friend of Dom Mintoff, whose idea it was to use Fr Grech as an envoy between the Malta Labour Party and the Vatican. This interference on Lady Bingley’s part distressed Fr Grech and earned him the distrust of Monsignor Gonzi.
Grech was well-known as a raconteur and a valued guest at parties in Malta, where he spent every summer. Another close friend was the author Nigel Dennis, at that time chief book reviewer for The Sunday Telegraph. They would swim together regularly. Grech told Dennis, a staunch atheist, as they sat together on Gnejna beach: “Catholicism is important to the Maltese. Without it we would be barbarians.”
Cardinal Prosper Grech, born December 24 1925, died December 30 2019