The philosopher who would be clown

Additional reporting by Miriam Dalli and Raphael Vassallo.

It’s hardly surprising that the death of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott last Friday was met with an outpouring of grief that was as varied as it was substantial. Figures from all walks of life chimed in to express their appreciation of the former University Rector, who died at Mater Dei Hospital at the age of 75.

Among the many to be touched by the philosopher’s passing was the architect Richard England, who had been a friend of Serracino Inglott since the age of 13.

“It’s the most difficult thing to find words to describe a friend I have known since I was 13 years old,” England said when contacted by MaltaToday.

“He is the best brain I have ever come across in my entire life... a man with the biggest heart.”

England said that with the passing of Serracino Inglott, Malta had lost one of its greatest assets.

“I have lost a dear friend ... I am speechless,” he added.

Though personal, England’s reaction was also unanimous. Through his work as a Catholic priest, philosopher and advisor to the Nationalist Party under the Eddie Fenech Adami administration, Serracino Inglott’s intellectual influence stretched far and wide, and contributed directly to key developments in Malta.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi also expressed his condolences and described Serracino Inglott as one of the greatest Maltese thinkers of all times.

“With his work, Fr Peter was instrumental for the educative, social and cultural developments of our country,” Gonzi said.

Fellow philosophy Professor Joe Friggieri said that Sarracino Inglott was “an outstanding and original thinker, whose breadth of vision marked his achievements in so many different fields. The Maltese Church, the University and the country as a whole are deeply indebted to him”.

Despite his steadfast Christian-Democrat alignment, Serracino Inglott was also distinguished by his philosophical rigour. An outspoken thinker, Serracino Inglott often criticised government, while also taking an out-of-the box approach to the day-to-day dealings of the church.

Born in 1936, Serracino Inglott accrued degrees from various universities, including Oxford, the Institut Catholique de Paris and the Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano. He was also awarded a number of Honoris Causa degrees from various institutions. Ordained priest by then Cardinal Montini in Milan – who was later elected as Pope Paul VI – Serracino Inglott headed the Philosophy Department at the University of Malta between 1971 and 1996.

As a rector, Serracino Inglott implemented the policy that has made tertiary studies accessible to all.

He served as University rector during the turbulent Dom Mintoff era, which he vividly recalled in a 2001 MaltaToday interview… particularly an incident in which a group of thugs – armed with knives, iron bars and guns – invaded a graduation ceremony supposedly for the sake of protecting the Minister for Education.

“I can still see Roger Bonavita lying in a pool of blood with his head broken on campus. And Josie Attard Montalto, the deputy librarian, knocked out on the floor. The funny thing was that the latter was a supporter of the government of the day, my guess is that he was not recognised by the thugs. The shock brought on a heart attack but later he stated that he had walked into a door and the thud had knocked him out,” Serracino Inglott had recounted.

Perhaps in what is another example of Serracino Inglott’s consistently moderate intellectual stance, in that very same interview, the former rector explained how his aversion to Mintoff as a politician did not necessarily mean that he disliked the former prime minister’s political ideas wholesale.

“The great pity is that I have always had a great deal of sympathy with Mintoff’s ideas. It was his manner of implementing them that I always thought was wrong. For instance, I greatly admire Cardinal Newman’s idea that university should provide an environment where people can discuss freely. But I do not agree with his other philosophy of knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge should be acquired for utilitarian reasons. Of course, you can’t apply too narrow a definition of ‘utilitarian reasons’: I believe that music and the arts are among the most useful kinds of knowledge you can have.

“But their definition of ‘use’ is not that of making as much money as possible. With Mintoff it is the same, I admired some of his ideas, but not his way of putting them in action. But I was always very much in favour of worker participation and a welfare society.”

This view of education as a holistic endeavour also appears to be an enduring facet of Serracino Inglott’s character, and one that many have remarked following his death.

Xarabank presenter Joe ‘Peppi’ Azzopardi – whom Serracino Inglott had inspired to set up the social lobby group ‘Tan-Numri’ in the 80s – described the philosopher’s way of working as being uncompromisingly democratic.

“He was the most influential person in my life. Mostly because of the way he used to live, and how he would teach. This was made clear to me when I would go to his house and see him helping a child with their schoolwork. Then, a politician would walk in, for example, and he would treat them in exactly the same way,” Azzopardi said, adding that “his specialisation was that he had no specialisation. He was a master at bringing ideas and concepts together, at finding connections between things.”

Similarly, former PN secretary general Joe Saliba – previously a stone mason, he was motivated by Serracino Inglott to take up a University education – remembers him for his great intellect but  also for his humility.

“I remember visiting him at his Tarxien home; basically two rooms, which he shared with his mother…”

One curious detail that lives on in Saliba’s memory is the theologian’s “genuine love” for clowns and donkeys.

“It was always an ambition of his to organise a Mass for children, which he himself would celebrate in the guise of a clown.”

This never quite materialised, but he did come close: at an inaugural Mass for the start of the University’s academic year in the early 1990s, a Theatres Studies student performed the clown role in the background, while he celebrated the Liturgy.

According to Saliba, the significance of the clown for Serracino Inglott was not too far removed from the significance of the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear: he recognised the importance of the clown figure as an antidote to human self-aggrandisement.

“The clown, for Fr Peter, was an embodiment of the notion that nothing is certain; that regardless of human pretensions, we are all dust at the end of the day. This is why he reasoned that the world needs to be taken lightly, even ridiculed at times.”

As for the donkey, Serracino Inglott viewed the animal as a symbol of humility: observing that the creature was central to three crucial episodes in the life of Christ. The first concerned his birth in a manger in Bethelehem, watched over by a donkey and an ox. The second, the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt; and the third, Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem a week before his passion and death.

On the subject of religion, Joe Saliba noted how Fr Peter was not a man of blind faith. On the contrary, his was a faith which was strengthened through reason.

“Fr Peter always used to say that his partner was doubt,” Saliba recalls. “He would never allow a sense of certainty to overcome him. For him, doubt was an integral part of faith.”

And Serracino Inglott’s talent for intellectual scrutiny remained alert as ever, even as recently as last year. In an January 2011 interview with sister newspaper Illum, the philosopher did not hold back on criticising government’s handling of both the honoraria issue and Renzo Piano’s plans for City Gate.

He also displayed a confident grasp of the economic situation in Europe, as well as recent developments in the world of Information Technology – particularly as regards Open Source entities like Wikipedia (arguably an ideal embodiment of Serracino Inglott’s ideas about free education for all).

Serracino Inglott had been hospitalised prior to that same interview.

“While I was in the Intensive Care Unit people asked me: ‘are you afraid of death?’ I told them that when I die, I’ll have the pleasure of meeting Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and all of the other clowns I love so much.

“Then they asked: ‘So you won’t be meeting the saints?’

“Well, that much I take for granted, I told them with a smile.”