Eugenio borg

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EUGENE BORG (1886 - 1967) First Superior General of the Society of Christian Doctrine

Eugenio Borg, affectionately known as "Gege" by his fellow workers and by the members of the Society of Christian Doctrine, was born in Senglea on 24 July 1886. Later on during his childhood his family moved to Hamrun. It was here that he came in contact with George Preca, a close neighbour, still at that time a young teenager.

Very little is known of Eugenio as a child. At the age of sixteen, Eugenio enrolled as an apprentice at the HMS Dockyard where he learned the skill of a pattern maker, a career which he followed up to his retirement at the age of 57.

After working hours, Eugenio, like others of his age, used to meet with his friends in a field near the Hamrun Church. They entertained themselves to a few jokes, football matches and cigarettes. In fact Eugenio was a very heavy smoker. It was on one such occasion, in 1906, that George Preca, then aged 26 years and studying for the priesthood, visited them for the first time. Deacon George Preca talked to those carefree youths about the Passion of Jesus. Preca’s words slowly impressed them. They became his friends, and convinced him to visit them often, a wish which Fr Preca did not reject. So, regularly, they used to meet together for football, jokes, chats and also spiritual reflections which George Preca was more than pleased to share with these young people. Fr George Preca was ordained a priest in December 1906. His young friends thought that they would never see him again: they could never image how a priest could share their jokes and soil his black cassock in their field! But Fr Preca did join them again, and that sealed their friendship.

After some weeks, Fr Preca asked Eugenio to accompany him the next Sunday afternoon for a walk in the nearby countryside. He told him to bring with him some bread and cheese, an onion and some wine, together with a Bible! In preparation for that Sunday encounter, Eugenio bought his first Bible, in English of course, since none existed in Maltese. On that decisive Sunday afternoon, Fr Preca met Gege as they had agreed. They left off to the nearby area of Santa Venera, still largely unbuilt in those early days of the century. They made their way to a field overlooking Msida valley. There they passed an hour or so, in Bible study, especially on St John’s Gospel. Gege was as yet very shallow in his religious knowledge, but Fr Preca passed on his study and reflections on the Bible in a very persuasive manner. He was slowly forming the mind and heart of Eugenio for those Sunday meetings went on regularly. Later on in life, Eugenio was to refer to these meetings and rightly claim that they were the beginning of the Society of Christian Doctrine. God was planting and nourishing in him that first seed which had yet to grow and blossom.

The enthusiasm of young Fr Preca to give sound formation in the faith to this group of youths led him to rent a small one-room house in the main street of Hamrun. It was here that the Society of Christian Doctrine officially began on 7 March 1907. The early members gathered there for their religious formation, and soon after opened the doors to the teaching of children and adults of the same locality.

The second Centre was rightfully opened at Cospicua with the personal initiative of Eugenio. During his lunch break from work at the Dockyard, Gege used to gather around him a number of his fellow workers and explain to them parts of the Gospel or of the Church's teaching. He realised, however, that gathering people in wine bars and at work was not the best way to teach them. He looked forward to rent a house in Cospicua, close to the Dockyard. This he did in early 1908, ten months after the opening of the Hamrun Centre, with the help of the locals.

After that early beginning, Gege, already recognised by all as the first leader of the Society, was appointed by Fr Preca himself as the first Superior General of the Society in 1911. Eugenio, still very young, was the ideal man that Fr Preca required. Gege offered that determination and initiative necessary for the running and expansion of the new Society, and the spirituality required for the spreading of the Word of God in Malta and Gozo. He was tall and had a very slow stately walk. His humility endeared him to everybody, children and adults alike. Once he had decided to follow in the footsteps of Fr Preca, Gege immediately quitted smoking and embraced all the ideals that Fr Preca presented to the SDC members, including celibacy.

 With great enthusiasm and conviction, the early members of the Society took every opportunity to gather and teach people, whether in wine and coffee bars, parish squares or other places. From then onwards, under the leadership of the Founder Fr Preca, and driven by Eugenio's dynamism and initiative, the Society opened gradually other Centres in almost every town and village in Malta, where religious formation could be given to adults and children alike. 

The first Superior General, a man of prayer and zeal for the apostolate, was also of a good example at work at the Dockyard. He was obedient to his masters, and cautious in his work. He was esteemed by all and he was referred to as "the saint" (il-qaddis). The work place, or shop, where Eugenio and other Society members worked at the Dockyard, was also referred to as the "apostles' shop" (il-hanut tal-appostli), because of the atmosphere of fraternity and fellowship which could be seen and felt by the other fellow workers.

A Dockyard English inspector, a personal friend of Gege, who used to visit him regularly after retirement, once promised him a normal salary if he returned to the Dockyard without working, as his presence was enough to instill and encourage the other workers. After retirement from work, Eugenio, though very sick with diabetes, dedicated his whole energy to the Society which by then had established itself well in Malta and sent its first members to Australia. In 1958, the then Archbishop of Malta, His Excellency Mgr. Sir Michael Gonzi, with the Holy Sea's approval, presented Eugenio Borg with the title Pro Ecclesia et Pontificate in recognition of his work towards the Church.

Eugenio died at the venerable age of 80 on 12 March 1967, five years after the sad loss of his closest friend Fr George Preca in 1962, a friendship of more than half a century. Through a life dedicated to evangelisation and the apostolate, Eugenio Borg affirmed what the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had just promulgated on the role of the laity in the Church.

Thirty years to the day after his death, on 12 March 1997, the Archdiocese of Malta and the Diocese of Gozo issued the official decree initiating the process for the Cause of Beatification of Eugenio Borg. He is presented to all the laity and to all workers as a model of how to witness to Jesus and to his Gospel everywhere and to everyone. May his example inspire us in our active preparation of the Great Millennium and may God be glorified through him.