The first two weeks in August bring back memories, mostly enjoyable, all to do with the San Gaetano feast in Hamrun, my birthplace and, until some years ago, my residence.
But increasingly, the days of beautiful memories come tinged with shame for something, which I, albeit as a small player, took part in so many years ago.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Church worldwide was enveloped in a post-Conciliar aura, following the conclusions of Vatican Council II.
I was a young, fledgling priest then, caught up in this wave of enthusiasm.
One signal product of the council was the reform of the Liturgy, which included changing the language from Latin to the vernacular, but also other changes with regard to the way the churches were to be, no longer an assembly of faithful and clergy facing the altar but the clergy now facing the people.
Our church, the main church of Hamrun, was a relatively recent development. Hamrun itself became a parish in 1881 and the church came later. Its initial years were troubled by lack of funds. Originally, it was going to be near today’s HSBC, facing Valletta, but then, funds being scarce, it moved to a less expensive site.
Even here, there were not enough funds to allow excavations to go as deep as the builders wanted to.
Then the bishop came along with an offer of much-needed money and, in recompense, ordered the patron saint of the new parish to be his namesake, Gaetano, hence San Gejtanu, a Counter-Reformation saint much loved in Naples and Venice.
The church in Hamrun, being of recent origin and surrounded by a working class population, never became as rich in art and artefacts as the churches in the villages around Malta. But it slowly acquired things that reflected heritage.
In my childhood, it also acquired a dome which did not really fit in with its architecture and which is not the one that its architect, Giorgio Costantino Schinas, (this is the only church this architect ever designed) had planned for it.
But in the late 1960s, we the clergy in this parish somehow found ourselves at the forefront of the liturgical reform.
As it happened, in those years Emvin Cremona was painting the interior of the church. We then commissioned him to remove the main altar, the side altars and, as we saw it, to create Malta’s first post-Conciliar church.
This is what was done. Instead of the previous high altar, we got a square block of marble. The side altars were pulled down and confessionals put instead. (Until the late 1980s, I was one of the last to use them, until confession during Mass was forbidden).
We were, in other words, taken up in this iconoclast fury, forgetting we were resembling more the Protestant iconoclasts that San Gaetano had so preached against.
Years, many years later, we found out that we were the only ones who created such havoc. Malta’s three cathedrals, all the parishes and churches, did not even dream of pulling down their high altars but just put up a wooden, temporary altar in front of the main altar.
As a result of our conciliar enthusiasm, the few items of heritage our church possessed so far had became useless. They, or rather most of them, lie unused today, or bits and pieces are used as decorations on Maundy Thursday.
The church as we knew it in our childhood is gone. It may look nice but people who know and treasure Malta’s ecclesiastical heritage and all those who appreciate the traditional Maltese churches know this modern confection cannot and will not stand the test of time.
In fact, it hasn’t. Progressively, the church attracts less and less people interested in its heritage – a far different cry to what happens in all the other parishes. It never was, and today it is even less so, a focal point of the community. The band clubs, on the contrary, have grown and grown in their popular mass appeal, as is evident today.
Forty years ago, or more, my colleagues and I were imbued with post-Conciliar zeal. Today, in my changed situation, and with my advancing years, I am less certain we should have gone along with that iconoclastic fury.
The heritage we pulled down can never be put together again. When I see other parishes in the glory of their feast days, I know that the link from tradition to today is a tenuous link that, if broken, can never be made whole.
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