Archbishop Michael Gonzi in a changing Malta

Abstract

The 1st of January 1944 was a turning point in the history of the Maltese diocese which was elevated to the rank of a Metropolitan See by Pope Pius XII who thereby established the Maltese ecclesiastical province. That move meant that Monsignor Michael Gonzi, a former Labour Senator from the Cottonera area, bishop of Gozo for about twenty years, and since October 1943 Bishop Coadjutor with the right of succession to Malta’s Archbishop Mauro Caruana, was given the designation of Archbishop and Metropolitan of the newly-established Maltese ecclesiastical province. Since Archbishop Gonzi’s episcopate was so exceptionally long (1924-1976), one may easily speak of an “Archbishop Gonzi era”, at least within the realm of ecclesiastical history. His long tenure was bound to leave an impact on the public sphere in twentieth-century Malta. The first chapter of this work maps and analyses the sources employed about Archbishop Gonzi whilst introducing the reader to new documentation utilised by the present author in the process of writing this thesis. The Fondo Gonzi, deposited at the Archives of the Archbishop’s Curia, the Archives of the Secretary of State of the Holy See, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, those of Marquette University, and the tapping of other secondary sources, have proved highly beneficial. The second chapter focuses on the role of the bishop within the Catholic Church and what the mentioned institution expected from the bishop’s end. The chapter briefly outlines how the role of the bishop in the Catholic Church has developed over the centuries and provides the theological and juridical foundation regarding that role. It also shows the shift in the position regarding the office of the bishop from Vatican Council I to Vatican Council II where the concept of the triple office of the bishop to sanctify, teach and govern philosophy was formulated In Malta, the identity of the Maltese people, as in the case of the Irish, the Poles and the Spaniards, was intimately associated with their religion. The Roman Catholic Church in Malta has been a symbol of unity and a rallying point. Chapter three investigates the relationship between religion and politics proving that in Malta’s case the two realms of religion and politics have never been totally separated but, on the other hand, grew together thereby leading to a mutual relationship. Knowing that religion could function as a powerful ideology, Mr Dom Mintoff, the leader of the Labour Party, wanted to change this relationship and was critical of the accepted norm that the teachings of the Catholic Church influenced the political decisions taken by the elected majority. The end result was a complex situation since Archbishop Gonzi’s episcopate coincided with the rise of Communist and Liberal regimes which not only side-lined the Church but often depicted the Church itself as an enemy of the state and was consequently made to suffer. Moreover, the third chapter will elaborate on the fact that Archbishop Gonzi, in his resolved position against Integration and Independence, was only defending the model of the Church as a perfect society that he was trained to defend, together with the belief that in a Catholic State, it was the duty of its rulers to defend the Church. Still, Archbishop Gonzi made an important stride forward during the forging of the Independence Constitution that would be later championed by the Second Vatican Council, that is to say, the acceptance of a clause relating to freedom of conscience. The fourth chapter of this dissertation interprets the interventions of Archbishop Gonzi in the social field in terms of the limits of civil power, the family’s rights and responsibilities, the right to own private property, the rights of workers to join a trade union of their own choice and to take home a just and decent wage, the role of taxation and education, and particularly religious education in the context of the Catholic social tradition and of the particular social circumstances in Malta at the time. Towards the end, the chapter brings out two facets of Gonzi’s personality, one being his strong commitment in assisting the poor, and the other being the controversial character of his interventions which were disputed by those who regarded the Church’s active participation in society as an interference in politics. Archbishop Gonzi’s episcopate occurred in a very specific context since Malta was a British colony and because the islands’ strategic position determined the way it was administered. The fifth chapter challenges the commonly held view that the Church in Malta has been treated with gloves to ensure a smooth government, and in fact shows that the matter should not be simplistically explained. Thanks to new documentation found at the Archives of the Holy See, the chapter also dismisses the argument that Archbishop Gonzi was chosen for the post because of his pro-British sentiments. The many political, economic and socio-economic changes that occurred in the nineteen-sixties and the reforms demanded by the Second Vatican Council are portrayed in the sixth chapter which also shows that the trends of secularisation and modernisation were threads that ran through the period that Archbishop Gonzi was at the helm of the Malta Church and not during the last decade of Archbishop Gonzi’s episcopate. As a result, these novel trends redefined the role of religion in the public sphere but failed to ‘banish’ it to the private realm. Chapter seven focuses on the development of the episcopate which resulted from the abovementioned changes. The doctoral project refers to four distinct phases of the episcopate which show an episcopate in a continuous process of change and adaptation.