An evaluation of the episcopate of archbishop Mauro Caruana through his pastoral letters (1915-1943)

Abstract

“Mgr Caruana was a religious, and a religious must seek perfection. Was he a true religious? Yes, beyond all doubt. Elevated to the episcopal dignity and arrayed in episcopal robes, he never set aside the religious spirit.” Mgr Galea, one of his closest collaborators, so defined him in the funerary oration he gave in his honour. To his contemporaries, however, the Benedictine spirit praised by Galea, was often a source of frustration. Proud of their Italian spirit, the majority of the local clergy always remained suspicious of the pro- British bishop, an outsider the colonial power had imposed upon them. During his lifetime, he was to face a good share of controversy. Yet he devotedly led the local Church for 28 years through turbulent times, as Europe went from the grips of one Great War to a second. After his demise, he was largely forgotten, neglected in the silence of his tomb, his merits largely ignored in keeping with a historiographical tradition often unwilling to go beyond the polemical. Our people remember only his successor, Mgr Michael Gonzi. Although Gonzi was not among Caruana’s proposed candidates when the latter insisted on having an auxiliary or coadjutor to assist him, the Holy See ultimately chose Gonzi, a decision Caruana accepted, and was ready to sustain. Studies on Caruana have, so far, remained limited, the few exceptions usually linked to the politico- religious question, the first of a number that were to mark the contemporary history of the Church in twentieth century Malta. The apologetics have broken this silence, such as the sketches published by Michael Galea. However, a serious biography of this bishop, who led the Church at a formative moment of our nation, remains lacking. We here propose a reading of this figure through a brief study of his pastoral letters, conscious that given the specific theological aims of such a tool, it can only permit, at best, a partial reading of the historical reality. [excerpt]