Priests, especially in the Christian tradition, are rarely militant or warmongering. Even in the days of the Crusades, priests were not the ones at the front doing the fighting. So why did Roman Catholic priests revolt in Malta in the late eighteenth century?

In 1773, Malta was ruled by the Knights of St John. The island had seen 200 years of peace following the Great Siege of Malta. This was a first in Maltese history and life improved for the locals. Having the Knights based there also had a positive effect on the economy, culture and the arts. It is no exaggeration to say that life had never been better in Malta.

Life was peaceful but a plot to kill the Grandmaster and all the Knights had been foiled 25 years before this point in time.

In this year, Grand Master Manuel Pinto de Fonseca died. He had been Grand Master for 30 years and had invested in the islands during his reign. (The modern-day entertainment zone called the Valletta Waterfront is inside Pinto Wharf. This bears his name since he built this wharf and storage rooms to foster and encourage trade)

All this investment came from the Knights’ treasury. The new Grand Master, Spaniard Francisco Ximenes de Texada y Eslava, found a huge amount of debt. He decided to impose austerity measures. His first choice was to reduce spending but he also decided to increase the price of corn to help with revenues. He continued in this vein making him more and more unpopular.

The situation became tense. Don Gaetano Mannarino was one of the first priests to start plotting against the Grand Master. He gathered like-minded priests and they would meet in the Upper Barrakka gardens overlooking the harbour¹. They chose to attack the Knights on 8 September when they knew that the Order’s ships would be at sea.

Twenty eight priests and some locals should have turned up for the revolt. Some chickened out and only 18 priests showed up. Mannarino wasn’t going to let this setback discourage him, so the rebels attacked Valletta. It only took 13 people to take over Fort St Elmo on the Eastern most tip of Valletta. The others attacked St James Cavalier on the western walls of the capital city. They lowered the flags of the Order of the Knights and raised the flags of St Paul instead.

The Knights wanted to negotiate. The revolutionaries threatened to blow up St Elmo’s gunpowder store, so the only option was military.

The whole revolution lasted a few hours.

It took 2 more years before trials started. The Grand Master was furious. When he discovered the priests would meet in the Upper Barraka, he ordered the roofs of the Barrakka’s arcades to be taken down so he would be able to monitor comings and goings from the Auberge de Castille¹. The arcades in the garden have remained like this to this day.

The courts executed three people by hanging. Mannarino received a life imprisonment sentence. He served 20 years in prison before Napoleon freed him when he conquered the island. All the others were imprisoned, exiled or acquitted.

Have you heard stories of revolting priests before?

References

1. A hand book, or guide, for strangers visiting Malta; Thomas MacGill; 1839[↩][↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.