Mystic Guza Mifsud set to get posthumous MEPA permit

CHRONICLES OF A MYSTIC - Guza Mifsud

MEPA's Planning Directorate is recommending the sanctioning of the illegally-developed religious shrine located within a Natura 2000 site designated as a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area.

A case officer report is calling on MEPA to accept an application presented by the 'Moviment Madonna Tal-Konsagrazzjoni' to formalise the Girgenti shrine as a meeting place for prayers and worship, and to sanction "additions" made in the past years and erect a brand new bronze statue of Jesus Christ.

The new development retains the existing 100 benches, a podium and an altar, a store with underlying basement as well as boundary walls and a timber canopy above the altar. Prior to 1992 the site was characterised by two open fields

The applicants were also told to devise a landscaping plan, a lighting plan and a rainwater management plan. The development will be embellished with new Spanish broom and myrtle trees as well as four rose bushes behind the altar.

MEPA's Natural Heritage Advisory Committee (NHAC) had previously objected to the application. According to the NHAC, the development involved the paving of a significant area, which is both outside development zones, and part of a Special Area of Conservation.

"Various structures and additions were then developed without legal permits," the panel said. In view of these illegalities the panel insists, "sanctioning cannot be recommended."

Although the shrine was an illegal construction, no enforcement notice was ever issued by MEPA.

In 2010 the government's Good Causes Fund gave €1,500 to the followers of religious mystic, to upgrade their meeting place which still lacked any planning permits. The money was used to pay MEPA application fees.

Guza Mifsud

Case officer's justification

The case officer report is recommending the approval of the development while acknowledging that it could be in breach of the Structure Plan.

"In terms of current applicable policies for rural areas, particularly Structure Plan policies RCO 2, RCO 4 and SET 11, the proposed sanctioning is considered objectionable in that it has entailed the take up of new land, has led to the formalization of land outside development zone, and has introduced urban forms and materials in a rural landscape."

Notwithstanding this, it notes that the use of the site as a worship place dates back prior to 1992, and that there is no pending enforcement action on site.

It also states that the proposed sanctioning is not for commercial but rather for "socio-religious purposes".

According to the report "such sanctioning is generally considered objectionable on policy grounds" but the guidance of the Planning Directorate Advisory Team (PDAT) was that the proposal could be considered favourably, on its own merit, on the understanding that no further development will be considered in the future.

The Environment Protection Directorate also approved the development stating that no environmental impacts are expected.  Neither were any priority habitats destroyed when the development took place on two open fields in 1992.

The case officer report also refers to communication with the Archdiocese of Malta stating that the local ecclesiastical authorities find no objection to the holding of prayer meetings and such other religious activities by the 'Moviment Madonna tal-Konsagrazzjoni' on the site in question.

One of the conditions imposed by the Directorate is that the site shall be used exclusively for religious purposes. "No form of habitation, sale by retail or commercial use shall be allowed on site."

A permit made in heaven

The shrine attracts pilgrims who come to pray to the statue of the Virgin Mary, erected by Guza Mifsud herself in 1986.  Prayer meetings are held on the site twice a month.

The statue, designed by sculptor Anton Agius, was based on an image drawn by Mifsud, allegedly on instructions of the Virgin Mary.

When Mifsud had been asked whether she had a permit from the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to erect this statue, she famously replied she had the permission of the Virgin Mary.

A gigantic cross was later erected in 1992 and a belfry was attached to a nearby farmhouse, giving it a church-like appearance. A number of stone benches were also constructed.

Mifsud became the stuff of legend, when prior to her death, she was rumoured to have warned of bloodshed in the eventuality of a Labour victory at the polls. She would die on 26 October 1996 - the very day Alfred Sant became Prime Minister.

Prayer meetings are still held at the Girgenti shrine on the first and third Sundays of every month. The Virgin Mary is believed to have told Mifsud to build a church in her name in Girgenti - an area later to be designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) by the European Union's habitats directive.

Chronicles of a mystic

Guza Mifsud, an uneducated farm girl who lived in the Girgenti valley, claimed to have had the first visions of the apparitions at the age of 15.

In the 1950s, Mifsud had claimed a divine voice had instructed her to write five letters to Prime Minister Paul Boffa, urging him to introduce laws against swearing.

In later years, she conveyed her messages of world peace to American President Ronald Reagan, Russian President Michael Gorbachev, and Iraqi and Iranian leaders Saddam Hussien and Ayatollah Khomeini.

She wrote to President George Bush Snr before the 1991 Gulf War, telling him the Virgin Mary had instructed her to pray that the Lord changes Saddam Hussein's heart "from one of steel into one of flesh."

But she also warned the US President that the Virgin Mary wanted him to be "an instrument of peace" and disregard the ultimatum to Hussein. She had also wished peace to Hussein, reminding him that the Kuwaitis were his "brethren too".