Gozo family appeals to Archbishop to remove Abbazia rector

The Gozitan family facing eviction after a successful legal challenge from a 17th century property foundation, has appealed to the Maltese Archbishop to use his powers to curtail the powers he imbued in the foundation’s administrator.

Gordon Mifsud, the son-in-law of Josephine Cauchi – who faces eviction after a court declared she had no legal title to her family home, built on land owned by the Abbazia di Sant Antonio delli Navarra – said Archbishop Charles Scicluna should remove the Abbazia’s administrator ‘rector’, which he appointed, and thereby stop the Abbazia’s legal actions to claim back swathes of land in Qala and Nadur.

“By the power with which he appointed a new rector of the Benefice, then he retain the right to remove that rector. As things are, I think this stands to reason and the Archbishop knows well what is happening. Not only does he have the duty not to allow such things to happen, but he indeed has a moral obligation,” Mifsud told MaltaToday.

The Abbazia is a 17th century foundation created by the noblewoman Cosmana Navarra to have her male descendants administer the lands she had claimed as her own in Qala and Nadur.

For the past two centuries, the foundation was managed by a ‘rector’ appointed by the Maltese archdiocese, since no male heir had been identified to take over the foundation.

In 2017, a company representing the Abbazia – composed of the alleged Navarra heirs, as well as former Gozo Curia lawyer Carmelo Galea and former judge Dennis Montebello – successfully convinced Archbishop Charles Scicluna to relinquish control of the Abbazia, to their rector of choice, the lawyer Patrick Valentino. The church was gifted a €200,000 donation, whose accumulating interest was to be used, in part, for pious obligations for the repose of Navarra’s soul as requested in her foundation deed.

Valentino proceeded to transfer the Abbazia’s lands on a perpetual lease to the Stagno Navarras and their partners, to develop them into apartment complexes. Mifsud says Archbishop Scicluna could have used his power to veto such speculative actions.

Additionally, he brought legal proceedings against property dwellers who had built their family homes on land leased by the Abbazia’s rector in 1891 – then a cleric – and which had been later incorrectly registered by a notary as being Church-owned. Because of this error, these people could neither redeem the ground rent legally, nor register their property title with the State.

These legal actions come late in the day, catching many of the Qala residents facing similar eviction threats fearful of being either charged high rents by the new private ‘owners’ or simply losing their home.

Gordon Mifsud insists the decision to relinquish the Abbazia’s control to Valentino was wrong, for it simply allows him to lease out the Abbazia land in perpetuity to the company Carravan, owned by Galea, Montebello and the Stagno Navarras. Carravan has itself leased the land to developer Joseph Portelli to construct two massive apartment blocks of 160 units in Qala and 80 in Nadur.

“The foundation deed gave the Archbishop the right to appoint as rector of the Abbazia, a priest in the absence of Navarra’s direct male descendant. Irrespective of this choice, without any valid reason, the archbishop elected to appoint Valentino as rector of this propertied foundation,” Mifsud said.

Archbishop Scicluna has always claimed he followed the Curia’s legal advice on the matter.

But in 2013, his predecessors had successfully won a legal case instituted back in 1990 by Richard Stagno Navarra – presumed heir of Cosmana Navarra – to retain the power to appoint the rector of the Abbazia.

“We believe the Archbishop should have continued in the steps of his predecessors and nominated a priest as rector,” Mifsud said, saying the Curia had always opposed Richard Stagno Navarra’s pretensions to be made rector. “Today it is clear that the foundation is in the hands of speculator-lawyers who had always wanted to lay claim on these lands…”

The Abbazia’s control has long been targeted by Galea and Montebello, and the late Richard Stagno Navarra.

In 1990, the Church had to file legal action after the Gozo Court – presided by the former judge Carol Peralta – decided to give Stagno Navarra control of the Abbazia without even hearing out the archdiocese, in the matter of 24 hours.

“Scicluna has turned the Abbazia’s foundation deed into some à la carte menu… giving these speculators the liberty to do as they wish with the assets of the foundation. He has let this foundation fall into the hands of lawyers with no conscience, who want more than they already have, who use the force of the courts to threaten people, and to feed at the trough of this feudal foundation.”