His Lordship Mgr. Emmanuel Gerada (1920-2011) B.A., Lic.D. I.C.D., titular Bishop of Nomentum, was in those days Coadjutor to the Archbishop of Malta.
He was born in Zejtun and studied in England and Rome. He was in the Vatican Diplomatic Service between 1950 and 1967. He told me he served in Egypt, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico and Ruanda.
We first met on 28th May, 1973 at the office of Malta Television, Gwardamangia. He told me that he was now seven years in Malta and that he spent half his life abroad. This helped him to see Maltese affairs from more distance. It took him some time to get used to living in Malta again.
Our second meeting was on 1st June, 1973, at his office, Archbishop’s Palace, Valletta.
‘Luckily many people are nowadays not so anticlerical as during the fight between the Church and the MLP, some, however, did not change.
According to the Australian Broadcast Company I should have said that the festa’s should be abolished. This was not true. I wanted to streamline them a bit, and I wanted the political rivalry to be over now.
I was asked for this job by the Pope. I said yes, so I’m here. Otherwise I would have been a nuncio now. I don’t know who recommended me for this job. I think Mgr. Gonzi liked the idea. First I was Auxiliary Bishop. Seven months later I was appointed Coadjutot, a higher rank.’
I asked him when he expected Archbishop Gonzi to retire. ‘The age is 75, but this is an advice. If you don’t want to retire you don’t have to. Mgr. Gonzi is still fit for the job and I’ll help him as much as I can.
I am NOT against the Mc Kinsey report. I criticised some details of it. I thought it was my duty to show the parts I did not approve of. But I accepted the general idea behind it and the Church is reforming itself like this. We don’t want to own a commercial bank.
According to Mgr. Gonzi the Church owns 1/16 or 1/17 of the land in Malta. During the boom we sold some and now we are trying to dispose of more. But we cannot risk ourselves by selling land at once now that the market is very bad.
In 1966 I was not in Malta, so I don’t know about the Pastoral Letter before the elections. In 1971 we all agreed on the Pastoral Letter.
Mintoff asked me to try to make peace between the Church and the MLP. It was difficult to make the first step, but it had to be done.
The Church lost much money with the Canadian Millionaire. That was Mgr. Gonzi, and with BICAL. It was an authorized bank. Only recently the Central bank controls all banks.
Mgr. Galea ordained me as a priest. He and Mgr. Gonzi (I asked him because he was becoming my chief) ordained me a a Bishop.
I solved the problem of the burials in unconsecrated ground, outside the cemetery, silently, by making a hole in the wall and extending the gravesite.
In case of another interview I would like to see your questions first so that I can reflect about them. I would recommend you to read Fr. Houtart’s report on the Church of Malta.’
I remember Mgr. Gerada insisting to have the final say in what I should write down. I politely refused and decided not to ask him for another interview in the future as I could not allow any interference from outsiders with my research.
Mgr Gerada would never become Archbishop of Malta. It was rumoured that his mishandling of the church’s finances (BICAL) cost him this promotion. In these days the joke circulated that at the Vatican as a prelate you could sometimes get away with a killing, but not with an scandal with women and certainly not with wasting the church’s money.
Mgr Gonzi would be succeeded in 1976 by Mgr. Guiseppe Mercieca, in retrospect a much better choice.
Mgr. Gerada resumed his diplomatic career and retired to Malta in 1995. He died in 2011.
(originally posted on Facebook 24th November 2024)