First Maltese Saint

Dun Gorg Preca is now declared as the first Maltese saint in history and on June 3rd will be officially canonised in Rome.

I don't consider myself religious these days. More interested in being spiritual without the intervention of institutional setups with their rites and rituals. I grew out of that, thank you.

However, I admire any human being who proved himself to be a leader in what he believed in and through courage and determination was a pioneer in his field.

Dun Gorg Preca managed to capture people's imagination at a time (around the first decades of last century) when times were hard and people were simpler in their thinking. They were receptive and unquestionable. Would Dun Gorg have the same earnest following if today he preached in the streets as he used to? I doubt it. Times have changed and his greatness is in the fact that he was around with his mesmerising preaching at the right time. Today his teaching still goes on though his strategies for passing on these teachings have evolved with the use of technology to spread the word.

Dun Gorg Preca was a man who through a time when people were hungry for direction and guidance he managed to set up a religious society of lay people. His little group of men and women grew up to be the Society of Christian Doctrine (known locally as M.U.S.E.U.M.), and today it consists of about 110 Centres and 1100 members. They teach about 20,000 boys and girls in the Maltese islands, in Australia, Peru, the Sudan, United Kingdom, Kenya and Albania. The Society was set up in 1907.

Personally, I do feel uneasy on the issuing of saints as nobody can really know another person, his motivations behind his actions. Talking in general, of course, could there be pride, ambition or any other factor behind a person's actions? In history we come across stories of saints that were declared as such through some questionable conspiracy amongst those concerned with the canonisation and these declared saints were far from saintly.

Of course, those who are fervent religious will decline any such things happen in the Vatican and stunned with such allegations. And that is the problem - saintmaking is like preaching to the converted.

Valid only to those who already share the belief.

In that light I am happy for those who believe that having a saint of their own blood matters.