Remains of Teresa Parlar, alleged mystic committed for hysteria, reinterred in Birgu church

The  Dominican Church of the Annunciation of Vittoriosa has reinterred the remains of Francesca Teresa Parlar, a Tertiary Dominican, from her grave in the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Addolorata Cemetery, to the church.

Parlar was born in Valletta on 24 November 1842, and enrolled as a nun in 1882 amid numerous mystical raptures and visions.

However, the Church has never officially confirmed the veracity of her alleged properties.

The dead body of Francesca Teresa Parlar

Very little is known about Teresa’s childhood and youth, apart from being born to a family which fell on hard times and attempted to recover financially in the clothing business in Constantinople, before returning to Malta.

One known fact is that when she was eight years old, she ardently wished to receive her First Holy Communion. It was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrated at the church of Our Lady of Porto Salvo, Senglea. When she was told she was too young to receive Communion, Teresa suffered a severe headache and ended up in bed. With the consent of her confessor, Fr Salvatore OFM Cap, Teresa received Communion.

Francesca Teresa Parlar

As a lay Dominican, her fame briskly spread throughout the island, the ecclesiastical authorities called Fr Antonio Bottalla SJ to investigate what people were saying. Bottalla visited Teresa together with Fr Enrico Vella OP, her confessor, in 1885 and concluded that she was possessed by evil spirits.

Bottalla submitted his report to Bishop Antonio Buhagiar OFM Cap, administrator of the diocese at the time, who decreed that Parlar be examined by Prof. Giuseppe Galea.

The burial of Francesca Tereza Parlar at the Vittoriosa church

On the bishop’s initiative, a commission was set up to examine Parlar’s life and give its judgement. The commission consisted of Mgr Isidoro Formosa and Fr Lorenzo Caruana OP, together with the eminent Professor of Medicine Dr Salvatore Luigi Pisani and Dr Giuseppe Odiardo Galea.

All the witnesses spoke of Parlar as a person endowed with extraordinary virtues. But in 1897, the decision was taken to take Parlar to the Central Hospital in Floriana. Parlar became so agitated on seeing the police arriving to take her to the hospital, that Dr Gian Felice Inglott, the district doctor, was called in. After examining Parlar, he concluded that she was on the verge of having a stroke. So her relocation to the hospital had to be postponed. 

Crown Advocate Dr Alfredo Naudi presented in court a petition, together with a medical certificate signed by Prof. Salvatore Luigi Pisani and Giuseppe Odiardo Galea, which declared: “...that Teresa Parlar is affected with a severe form of hysteria which renders her incapable of taking care of herself and of her property”.

Parlar later spent 14 months at St Vincent de Paul under strict surveillance by both the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. On July 6, 1901, she was given permission to leave the hospital and went to live in that small, humble house at Point Street, Senglea.

“Parlar is said to have lived these trials with great humility and charity, and indeed, there was no evidence to corroborate deceit in her extraordinary religious experiences. In 1901 she returned to her home in Triq il-Ponta in Senglea, where she had lived since her family had returned from Constantinople many years earlier,” the Dominican convent in Malta said in a statement marking the 139th anniversary of her enrolment as a Tertiary Dominican.

“She had once prophesied that her abode in Senglea will be demolished and never rebuilt. Today, where once stood Parlar’s humble household, destroyed during World War II, stands a lonely Palm tree in an unusual open space in the heart of Senglea.”

On 12 August 1927, Teresa Parlar breathed her last.