Dun Gorg Preca

A saint, a Maltese and a priest

Malta was one of the first countries which embraced the Catholic faith, yet up until the turn of the nineteenth century, the common people knew nothing about religion beyond basic facts. The bad went to hell and the good went to heaven, there was God above and the devil below and much of the rest blurred amidst village feasts and devotion to the Holy Mary and various saints. Illiteracy was rampant and mass was said in Latin, a language which was only comprehensible to members of the clergy and to a select few.

But all that would change through the initiative of Dun Gorg Preca, a priest who realised that the common people had the right to be taught religion and moreover to understand something about it.

He was born in Valletta on 12 February 1880, the seventh of nine children. The family eventually moved to Hamrun and there he started serving mass as an altar boy. Gorg Preca went to the local Primary School and then on to the Lyceum which at the time was the best government secondary school in Malta.

Following that, Gorg entered the Seminary, excelling especially in Latin. It was his habit, even then, to gather friends around him and give them a short spiritual talk. He was eventually ordained deacon only to have his strength literally taken away from him. He was diagnosed as suffering from lung failure and his father was told that Gorg would probably not have a long life ahead of him. He was discouraged from even buying him vestments or a missal.

However, just shortly before the day of his ordination in December 1906, Gorg got better and was ordained. He declared that he owed his miraculous cure to St Joseph whom he followed devoutly. As he grew much older he would jokingly say. "My father has died, the professor has died and I, with just one lung, am still alive to teach people!"

It was just after his ordination that he became inspired to teach others about the Catholic religion. In his own words, "When I became a priest I had no other thought, absolutely no other interest, than to wait for the morning and celebrate Mass. After Mass, I always went straight home. Our house was not big. We had a room next to the roof. I would go up there to pray the breviary. During the stillness, one morning, I had an inspiration from God – it is not enough for me merely to tell you this, but I would like to convince you – yes an inspiration fame tome from God that I should choose some young people and teach them so that they would be able to give religious formation to others."

At the time children learnt about God by gathering around other altar boys and the sacristan after mass and asking a few questions. On 7 March 1907 Dun Gorg rented a house at No. 6 Fra Diegu Street, Hamrun. It was a small house where he began gathering young men and teaching them catechism. He had a way with people, his persuasiveness, his charisma, his enthusiasm towards his religion were inspiring. It was immediately evident however, that ignorance in religious matters was astonishingly high.

In time the number of his pupils increased and he felt that he should form a society which was eventually called M.U.S.E.U.M. The co-workers of Dun Gorg were called "Papidi", "Apostles", and then "Soci". The first years were difficult. Dun Gorg directed a society of laymen who while teaching catechism needed to be instructed themselves. Dun Gorg started writing several books which in due course were revised and printed.

The Church in Malta felt the need for this society but feared that its members were not sufficiently trained to teach children. In 1909, Dun Gorg was ordered to close down all his houses . But soon the curia's order was retracted. After many years in 1932 Archbishop Mauro Caruana approved the Society. After that date, Dun Gorg guided his Society with greater calm. Everyone revered him as a saint.

World War II affected Dun Gorg and the Society adversely but still it continued to expand. In 1952 it spread to Australia. That same year Dun Gorg was nominated a Papal Secret Chamberlain with the title of Monsignor. But he never donned a monsignor's vestment and actually left the document which conferred on him the title, on the Archbishop’s table and never bother to claim it back.

Wealth and worldly things never attracted him. He lived a simple life with spartan means. In fact he only got electricity installed in his house in 1958, when one of the Society members took the initiative to have it done for him.

Till the end, Dun Gorg continued to teach in all towns and villages of Malta and Gozo. Many were enchanted by his words and deeds by his simplicity, humbleness and meekness. His words to the Society were "Teach, teach and teach, something of it will remain."

In 1961, after a whole lifetime in Hamrun, he was constrained to move to his housekeeper’s home in St. Venera where he eventually died on 26 July 1962.
Dun Gorg remained in the hearts and minds of all that had known him and all those who knew about him and his life’s work. Eventually, the Ordinary Congregation of the Cardinals and Bishops of the Congregation for Causes of Saints examined the scientifically unexplainable healing of Mr Charles Zammit Endrich. He had suffered from a detached retina of the left eye, and the healing which occurred on the 3 February 1964, was declared as a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Dun Gorg Preca.

On 24 June 1975 Archbishop Michael Gonzi issued a decree starting off the process leading to Dun Gorg's canonization.

Fr George Preca was declared Venerable on the 28th June 1999.

His Holiness Pope John Paul II signed the Decree confirming the miracle performed on Zammit Endrich in 1964 on Thursday 27 January 2000.

The remains of the Venerable Mgr Gorg Preca, exhumed on Friday 7 July 2000, from the crypt under the chapel of the MUSEUM headquarters in Blata l-Bajda, were found remarkably well preserved, 38 years after his death. His body was taken from the Hamrun Parish Church where he had been buried, to the M.U.S.E.U.M centre at Blata l-Bajda.

On Wednesday 9 March 2001 the Pope beatified Dun Gorg Preca together with 2 other Maltese Blessed during a morning Mass held on the Granaries, Floriana.