The Jesuits in Malta
A historical outline (part 1)
The Beginnings
In St. Ignatius' time the bishop of
Malta, Domnic Cubelles, asked Ignatius to send Jesuits to Malta so as to
help reform the diocese and the ruling Hospitalier
Order of St John (Knights of Malta), as well as to start a college.
Ignatius saw the possibility of using Malta as a base to send Jesuits to
Girba, near Tripoli. Given Malta's geographic position and the proximity
of the Maltese language to Arabic, Malta seemed to Ignatius an ideal stepping
stone to train missionaries for the Muslim world. Fr Bobadillia was destined
to carry out the diocesan apostolate in 1554, and other Jesuits to open
the College. Due to quarrels between the Bishop and the Order, however,
the plan did not materialise. In 1565 the newly elected Fr General, Francis
Borgia, sent a group of Jesuits with the army that was put together to
releave Malta from the Great Siege. It is not known if they actually landed,
and none further is known on this second attempt.
Fr Carminata. The first known Jesuit to come to Malta was Fr Carminata, in 1577. Being a well known preacher, he was invited by the Grandmaster to give lenten sermons to the knights. In 1578, the newly appointed bishop of Malta, Thomas Gargallo, asked Fr Carminata, then provincial of Sicily, to send Jesuits to Malta to open a College. Carminata obliged by sending three: Fr Casati, Fr Paraninfo and Br Longo. However, due to disputes between the Maltese authorities, the college was not built, and the three Jesuits were recalled back to Sicily.
Expansion
Settlement. The Sicilian Jesuits returned to Malta in 1590, on the bishop's insistance, and settled helping victims of the plague then ravishing the islands. In March, 1592, Pope Clement VIII sent letters to the bishop and Grandmaster ordering them to settle any differences at once and provide funds for the establishment of a Jesuit college. The college was founded instead of a seminary, the setting up of which was ordered by the Council of Trent, and confirmed in a 1591 diocesan synod.
The college opened in 8 March 1593 in a house in Valletta, while the building proper, together with the Jesuit Church in Valletta, was started in 1595 and until the 1970's housed the Malta University. Within two years, the Jesuits had already moved into the new building. Besides teaching within the college, the 9-strong Jesuit community heard confessions, preached in the villages, taught Christian doctrine to children, worked for conversion of Turks, acted as intemediaries between rival families helping to resolve blood feuds, and established Marian congregations for different groups of people.
Scapegoats. The Jesuits had to leave Malta on two occasions. In 1639 tensions arose between the rigid and orthodox Granmaster and a number of liberal knights. The knights used the Jesuits as a scapegoat: after several threats, the former were forced to leave. On intervention by the Pope, the situation promptly returned to normal, and the Jesuits were back by September, to reopen the college in December.
The Suppression. The second occasion was in 1768, during the suppression of the Order, when the rulers of Europe, forced the pope, on threat of scism, to ban the Jesuit Order. Jesuits, who had considerable influence on all parts of society though their colleges, itinerant preaching, and spiritual direction were regarded as obstacles in the rise of absolute monarchies and opponents of the illuminist culture. Simply to follow the trend set by the other European rulers, Grandmaster Pinto - who himself appreciated the work of the Jesuits in Malta - banished the Order from Malta, and consequently confiscated all its property. During the time of suppression many Jesuits ended up in "White" Russia and Prussia, others found refuge in California, Brazil and China.
