His recent death leads me to remember the trajectory we knew for so many years and his innovative spirit, which led him to make such significant contributions, apart from his pastoral and intellectual work.
The one that immediately stands out is his personality. He was a generous man, who always gave to others more than he received, with his humility, joy, good humor, ability to listen, although he always contributed more than the interlocutor, intelligent and creative.
I met him in the meetings that were held in the Alameda with Almirante Barroso, to talk about the Social Doctrine of the Church and Christian Social Thought. The young Mifsud, of Maltese origin (1949) arrived in Chile very young in 1974, already as a priest and joined the youth where he delivered his guitar and songs. He lived in Chile until his death, except for two years at CELAM in Colombia.
The contributions to our society are remarkable; as professor of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of Chile and at the Seminary, but his greatest teaching contribution was at the U. Alberto Hurtado. He held the direction of The Message Magazine for several years.
He published several books, among which the manual “Moral of Discernment” stands out in four volumes with several editions. The author himself qualified himself as a Moral Theologian.
One of his main achievements was related to ILADES (Latin American Institute of Doctrine and Social Studies), an entity related to CELAM and the University of Leuven in Belgium, which allowed him to form a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences. Their interest in economic-social issues and their closeness to Jorge Rodríguez Grossi led them to develop a high-level study center with a somewhat different approach from the existing ones, starting from ILADES. Five economists took part in its initial training: Jorge Rodríguez, its first director, Jorge Marshall, Felipe Morandé, Andrés Sanfuentes and Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, with full days, apart from the responsibility of Tony Mifsud. The central idea was to develop, apart from research tasks, postgraduate teaching, for which an agreement was made with the prestigious Georgetown University in the United States, administered by the Jesuits. With this, the degree of Master of Arts in Economics could be awarded, reflecting the confidence in the Chilean institution despite the independence with which it acted.
The institution obtained five-year financing from Konrad Adenauer and later from the IDB, until it could have its own resources.
The end of the dictatorship in 1990 and the new government of the Concertación, led several professors to occupy high positions in the administration, although they were replaced by other high-level academics. The quality of the ILADES faculty already had figures who even came to occupy Ministries.
After the recognition that ILADES achieved in the local environment, both for its teaching and its economic research and public dissemination, the problem was found that since it was not a Chilean university, its academic degrees were not recognized in the local media, which was a serious obstacle to attract many interested parties. Hence the idea of creating its own university from ILADES and other nearby study centers dedicated to education, law, social sciences and ethics as centers of thought. The leadership of this initiative was also assumed by Tony Mifsud. However, another drawback arose, a part of the Society of Jesus supported the idea, but another, especially young people, was in favor of concentrating efforts on the protection of the weakest, not only as worker priests, but invoking the example of Father Hurtado, rather than on the training of influential professionals. To solve the problem, the efforts of Tony and Gonzalo Arroyo were very important, resulting in the appointment of Fernando Montes as Rector of the incipient new university which, to comply with the regulatory requirements, created the Commercial Engineering career with specialties in Economics and Business Administration and several others, such as the expansion of CIDE. Under the direction of Montes for several years, the university experienced effective growth, achieving an important accreditation.
Tony Mifsud should be admired as a person who excelled in many respects, the most important being his great ability to relate to others, not just his sympathy and closeness to people, especially young people. Also his kindness and humilhood. He stood out as an important intellectual, spatially in the field of ethics and socio-economic relations. His contributions as an innovator are decisive, especially in the field of Higher Education. He was an unforgettable and exemplary man.
I appreciate Jorge Rodríguez G.’s comments to an early version of this column.
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