The priest with two lives

MONSINJUR VICTOR GRECH BEJN STORJA U MITI

Edited: Sergio Grech Publisher: Horizons. 2014 Extent: 206 pp

Horizons started its series of books about contemporary Maltese persons with the book about Dom Mintoff –which it subtitled Bejn storja u miti (Between history and myths). In the case of Mintoff, this sub-title was quite justified. It is less justified in this case for the second person to figure in this series is a living person, who is much loved and revered by the entire population, but who has no myths to dispel about his story.

Nevertheless, Dun Victor Grech has lived at least two lives – that of rector of the Seminary and that of Caritas director. There are other lives in the sidelines – the well-known preacher who used to pack halls like The Palace in Paola, the MUSEUM HQ in Blata l-Bajda and St Theresa Church in Birkirkara for Lenten sermons. He was also famous all over Malta for his radio programmes mainly on personal problems.

The book is a collection of essays and appreciations written by people who knew or worked with Dun Victor.

I can only add some personal background, for I too, had Dun Victor as a mentor at the vocations meetings every Saturday in the early 1960s and later as a rector between 1964 and 1972.

We were in reverential terror of him and got to know his steady measured steps as he retired for the night in the flat he shared with his mother facing the Argotti gardens.

Even then, he used to get many young people waiting to consult him.

He had been promoted to Seminary rector even before he became a priest, as his superiors realized his potential. We thought he would be rector for the rest of his life had it not been for some circumstances that the book only hints at.

With Archbishop Gonzi in his 90s and with Bishop Gerada, his appointed successor, out of the way, a huge campaign was silently waged inside the Maltese church for Gonzi’s succession. There were around four or five priests who were most mentioned. Dun Victor was one of them. The rumour said he was the candidate of the government, led by Dom Mintoff. Now Dun Victor, born in Cospicua of a naval person, and living for many years in Zejtun was naturally near to the Labour core, but he never tried to curry favour with the government. Mintoff’s government was quite intrusive where the church was concerned and maybe the interest in Dun Victor at the end acted against him.

There were others who were most mentioned at the time. People like Dun Benny Tonna, the sociologist, rumoured to be Gonzi’s candidate. And Prof. Carmelo Muscat, rumoured to be a Nationalist. And Beppe Mifsud Bonnici, rumoured to be backed by the priests in general.

Anyway, as the book itself says, there were so many candidates and their supporters all squabbling and writing to the Vatican accusing the other candidates of this and that, that at the end the Vatican gave up and sought a priest it knew because he was living in Rome at the time and he harboured no unorthodox thought. The Vatican played it safe and sent Giuseppe Mercieca, first as a Vicar General and later as a successor to Gonzi.

This was when Dun Victor was nicely removed from the Seminary. On the same night that Mercieca’s appointment was announced, a Maltese priest then in the Vatican diplomatic service in Indonesia received orders to come back to Malta. Mgr Lawrence Gatt, who had already served at the Seminary in the 1960s (and who tried to teach us Latin and Greek) became the next rector of the Seminary.

And Dun Victor? He was given a small outfit, begun years before by Dun Fortunat Mizzi, known as Caritas. There is a little-known background here. Caritas was just one of the local church’s charity organisations, mostly known, at that time, for organizing fund collections when some catastrophe hit some country.

There was another organization, the Justice and Peace Commission, of which I was secretary and Dr Riccardo Farrugia its president. Setting up the J&P Commission was being done all over the church in those days but here in Malta it could not get traction. I know the Mintoff government was very curious to know what this commission was doing but all it ever did was organize a painting competition by schoolchildren.

At one point, in September 1976, I took the initiative and paid out of my own pocket to go to a J&P delegate meeting that was being held in Brussels. I was completely out of my depth there but I remember there were cross-currents between the J&P commissions from northern Europe and the Vatican. These were the post-Vatican council years with all the turmoil in the church.

The Vatican at that meeting was represented by the secretary of the Vatican Commission Justi- tia et Pax, a Vatican diplomat Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, now a Cardinal, cousin of the more famous Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, past president of Fiat, Ferrari, Alitalia and president of Confindustria.

Anyway, that was that – Dun Victor went over to Caritas. Years later, his successor at the seminary, Mgr Lawrence Gatt, was sent to Villa Monsinjur Gonzi.

Quietly, almost unobtrusively, Dun Victor set to work and transformed Caritas into the full blown agency it today is. It took on and segmented the may social ills in Malta – from drugs to usury to unmarried mothers to I do not know what more – and set about doing something about them. It organized the San Blas house and offered drug addicts the possibility of snapping out of the habit.

Writer after writer in this book tell how Dun Victor’s eyes light up at the annual graduation held by Caritas when former drug ad- dicts are declared clean and can return to normal life.