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Chapter 22
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THE MALTA INQUISITION—VOTE CATHOLIC OR
BE DAMNED
By Avro Manhattan |
In 1962, the
Island of Malta was still a dependency of Great Britain. In that year
there took place an historical political struggle upon whose outcome
would depend the Island's future status.
The Catholic Church, as was to be expected, played no
mean role in the proceedings. But, as always when she can do so, she
used religion to promote her political interests and politics to promote
her religious ones.
This she did with the utmost disregard for the basic
tenets of democracy, liberty and honesty. Her influence being paramount,
she could impose her will upon all and sundry in moral, ethical, social
and thus even in political matters. As proved by the fact that the
Maltese law on marriage was the law of the Catholic Church, as codified
in the Catholic Canon Law, and that the Roman Catholic Apostolic
religion was the religion of Malta.
Prior to the 1962 election, the main political
opponent of the Church, the Maltese Labour Party, promised the
electorate to reduce the overwhelming power of the Church by a
reasonable liberalization. The Church came to the fore boldly, brazenly
and determined to win, cost what it may. The civil authorities were
already under her thumb while her opponent was hamstrung in all possible
directions.
Catholic leaders, priests and others had complete
freedom to speak, to preach and to hold assemblies; her opponents had to
run the gauntlet of the Catholic police who, when they could not
brazenly veto meetings, resorted to tricks bordering on the dishonest
and the illegal.
In addition, the election commissioner and his
assistants were all hand-picked by the Catholic Church via the colonial
administration.That was not all. Catholic organizations and the priests
often openly disturbed their opponents meetings. Indeed, it was an open
secret that priests organized veritable religious-political
expeditionary Catholic gangs with the specific purpose of breaking up
assemblies. The Catholic crusaders were not all adults. Thousands of
school children were taught genuine democracy in a practical way by
being supplied by their parents with hooters and whistles, which they
used en masse whenever they came across Labour speakers, often
preventing the speeches from being delivered.
A friend of the author, Mr. Tom Driberg, a prominent
member of the House of Commons, who happened to be visiting the island
at the time, was persistently hooted by hundreds of school children, who
pursued him wherever he went, having taken him for a potential speaker,
which he was not.
The Catholic clergy surpassed themselves in their
vigorous activities to defend the spiritual interests of Holy Mother
Church (and, we must not forget, one solid third of the island which she
owned) by using their brains as well as their muscles to silence the
devilish enemies.
And so the very bells of their belfries were made to
work whenever the whistles of their children (who, presumably, were put
to bed exhausted) had no more wind in them. The clergy's method was
certainly a sonorous one. And most effective. For it not only silenced
the Labour speakers, but deafened them and their listeners and those who
did not want to listen at all, the Catholic themselves.
So it came to pass that when the former Maltese
Premier, now enemy number one of God and of Saint Peter, began to
address an open air meeting, the bells of a nearby Church began to toll.
At first both Catholics and Socialists assumed there
was a funeral somewhere. Then, since the bells started to ring joyously,
they supposed they had made a mistake and that it must be a wedding.
Then, since the ringing turned into a kind of pandemonium, they
concluded that somebody had already won the elections (still weeks
ahead) or that there must be a carnival to celebrate some forgotten
Saint or other.
The bells, however, were in no mood to rest. On the
contrary, they tolled and pealed and rang with increasing energy,
stopping periodically only for a few minutes, to let the speaker begin
his first sentences, to start anew with devilish merriment. On this
occasion the bells rang continuously for THREE SOLID HOURS, not one
minute more and not one minute less.
When the Labour listeners, now practically stone deaf,
lost their patience and attempted to take the bells by their ropes...
via a well conducted siege of the belfry, they found the belfry and the
Church unassailable. A massive police cordon had surrounded the sacred
building, to prevent those vociferous silvery proclaimers of the rights
of the Church from being silenced.
Dom. Mintoff, the speaker who had not been permitted
to speak, and the parish priest who had ordered that the bells be rung
had sufficient energy left to write. So, while the first wrote protests
to his own press, the latter wrote a justification of his sonorous
interpretation of freedom of speech to the Times of Malta
(February 3, 1962). That journal one morning printed an illuminating
letter from Father Innocenzo Borg, of Luqa (the place where the bells
had tolled for three solid hours).
What? He, anti-democratic? he asked. What an insult!
Like the Catholic Church and the Archbishop of Malta, he, too, was a
firm believer in freedom of speech. Had he made the bells toll? Yes, he
had. But, assured Father Innocenzo, he had given the Labour speakers
several opportunities to stop speaking...and if that was not democracy,
could anyone tell him what true democracy meant? Here are the very words
which the good Father Innocenzo (i.e. Innocent) wrote in his letter of
explanation:
As regards the ringing of the bells which
continued long after sunset, may I say that the pealing of bells
stopped when the loudspeakers with their irreligious and scandalous
talk did stop. The bells rang, in fact, as a protest against this
kind of speech... and a speaker began to attack the church teaching
and his Grace the Archbishop. Several times, the ringing of the
bells for a very short time had unsuccessfully warned this
speaker to stop his irreligious speech, before the din of the bells
as Mr. Mintoff put it, "attempted to interfere with the public
meeting taking place in the public square."[1]
In addition to the mobilization of belfries, that of
the porches of churches followed suit, as well as of their walls,
internal and external. For posters of all sizes, colours and kinds
appeared all over Malta, decorating the sacred buildings with slogans in
which the Devil, the Labour Party, all the Saints of the Calendar and
even God Himself, not to mention the Catholic Church figured
prominently.
"Vote as directed by the Diocesan Junta," said a
poster on a Young Christian Workers Club. "God will be watching you. God
will judge you." "If you vote for the enemy of the Church," said
another, on the walls of Gudja Parish Church, "you will be defying the
Bishop, you will be defying God (sic).''
Parish priests sent letters to the voters. Witness the
one received by the parishioners of Marsa, Malta, written by Father
Felicjan Bilocca of the Order of St. Francis:
Before you cast your vote, say unto yourself: I
have but one soul. Am I going to lose it because of Mintoff?
A picture at the top of the circular showed Father
Felicjan blessing the new Church at Marsa dedicated to Our Lady of
Tears.[2]
Whether the voters thus addressed shed tears of joy at
the Father's political counsel is not recorded. But in all probability,
remembering their souls, they voted as he told them to vote. Thousands
more did likewise. Father Felicjan Bilocca was not the only one to use
religious fear to compel voters to vote for the Church. Following
threatening words with deeds, the Church ordered whoever she could
mobilize to vote according to her dicta. All young seminarians who had
never voted before, for instance, were compelled to go to the polls. All
the sick and the infirm of Malta were mobilized. Witness the following
extracts from a stenciled circular sent to bedridden voters before
polling day:"
We know that many of you never leave your home,
not even to hear Holy Mass. This time, however, YOU MUST COME OUT.
God knows your good intentions, and He will give
you the help you need.
We must vote for those whom we know not to be
against the priests, against the Church and against the Archbishop.
Do your duty, dear brethren, so that you will
share in the Victory for Catholic Malta.[3]
After which there was the following warning:
Our volunteers will be wearing a badge mounted
with a coloured photograph of Mons. Archbishop. Do not accept lifts
to the polling booths from persons who are against the Church.
That was not all. The Catholic Church mobilized her
most feared spiritual weapons and unblushingly used religious "terror"
to compel voters to vote her way. Imitating Pope Pius XII, who years
before had done the same, they told the Maltese, in no uncertain terms,
that unless they voted for the political party favoured by the Church
they would be grilled in the flames of Hell for endless millions of
years. Purgatory, in this case, was to be bypassed altogether. Priests
all over the island told voters that it was a mortal sin to vote for
Labour. The Archbishop himself gave specific instructions to that
effect:
Preachers can indeed be of great service for the
reassertion of the Church both in civil and political matters, as
the occasion demands... and for the recuperation of souls lost on
account of political matters... In their sermons or speeches they
should explain the divine influence of the Church for the formation
of a perfect society both private and public; about the divine power
of the Church and her unerring judgment, EVEN IN CIVIL LAWS; about
the gravity of mortal sin... the utility of Catholic associations.
[4]
The Archbishop's words were confirmed by the Bishop of
Gozo who, in April of the same year, published a circular telling
Catholic voters that to belong to the Labour Party or even to attend its
meetings was "a mortal sin."
To coordinate the individual and collective fear thus
engendered by the Hierarchy, the Vatican then dispatched to Malta from
Rome some of its best "organizers," specialized in that very type of
warfare generated directly by religious pressure and the fear of the
punishment of God.
These specialists were veterans in that kind of
religious-political pressure, since they had used it in exactly the same
way on a larger scale in Italy several times before. For instance, back
in 1949, Pope Pius XII had excommunicated all and sundry who either
directly or indirectly supported the Communists or their allies the
Socialists, in order to compel them to vote for the Catholic Party,
inspired and backed by the Vatican itself. In 1959 the Holy Office
had reiterated the excommunication, followed by another one in 1965,
when Cardinal Ottaviani said that the Holy Office decrees were
still in force.
[5]
Tacticians" like Father Rotondi, a Jesuit, led by none
other than Professor Gedda, a former President of Italian Catholic
Action, descended upon Malta and coordinated the religious pressure to
yield the maximum political results at the voting stations.
Professor Gedda, a brilliant organizer, had even
fuller cooperation from the Maltese Hierarchy than he had received from
the Hierarchy in Italy, where the Church, notwithstanding her boldness,
has to tread with a certain care. In Malta, the Church went further than
anywhere else. That is, she transformed the sacrosanct confessional into
a polling ballot box. Confessors were ordered to tell penitents how to
vote. Disobedience meant refusal of absolution.On the days of Our Lord
January 29 and 30, 1962, His Grace the Archbishop called a secret
meeting of all FATHER CONFESSORS only, at the Catholic Institute,
Floriana, and ordered them orally—under a THREAT OF EXCOMMUNICATION—to
"ask penitents whether they were voting Labour and to refuse them
absolution if the penitents persisted."
And so it came to pass that one morning—or, perhaps,
evening—the stupefied Maltese Catholics discovered that their
confessionals, those havens of secrecy and spiritual comfort which they
had always assumed were dedicated exclusively to whisperings between
them and their spiritual fathers concerning interesting private misdeeds
(mostly confined to love and money), now had become places of veritable
political confabulation, whence the Archbishop of Malta ordered them how
and for whom to vote.
In case readers should doubt the authenticity of these
archiepiscopal instructions, we quote a few. They are an ad litteram
translation of the Latin text distributed by hand on March 7, 1962, to
parish priests only:
Methods of Procedure for Father Confessors and
Preachers:[6]
A. As regards the Father Confessors
1. First of all, confessors should inquire of the
penitent whether he voted or not.
2. If the penitent did not vote, the confessor should
ask him why he shirked to fulfill such a heavy obligation.
(a) If the penitent shirked this obligation
through mere negligence while conscious of the gravity of such a
thing, he is to be accused of a serious omission...
(b) If he shirked this obligation because he had
no faith in any of the candidates...he should be argued with...; he
should, however, be REFUSED ABSOLUTION unless he faithfully accepts
the relevant directions issued in May 1961 against the spokesmen of
the political party hostile to the teaching of Holy Mother Church.
(c) If indeed he shirked this obligation through
malice he should be REFUSED ABSOLUTION...
3. If the penitent voted for the party hostile to the
Church, the confessor should ask whether in so doing the penitent had
sinned in private or in public (such public action implies either making
ones intention manifest or canvassing for that party).
(a) If the penitent declared himself to have
sinned privately, whether he should be absolved or not depends on
his sincerity...
(b) If on the other hand he sinned in public, he
should NOT BE ABSOLVED, unless and until he makes his atonement
public...and honestly promises that wherever possible he will make
reparation to the same extent that he had wrought damage to the
Church, Bishops, Priests, and all those he may have offended.[7]
So much for the sacrosanct sacrament of the confession
which, Catholics never tire of repeating, is inviolate and dedicated
exclusively to spiritual matters.
Having terrified the voters in the secretiveness of
the confessionals, the Maltese Hierarchy now came into the open and
inflicted a spiritual leprosy upon their political opponents by hurling
their bolts against the members of the National Executive Party. Here
are their words:
Their lordships... feel compelled to inflict from
now the canonical penalty of personal interdiction according to
canons 2291-2 and 2275 on all those who at the meeting of the
National Executive of the Malta Labour Party held on March 15, 1961,
took part in the drawing up of the statement or approved of it by
their votes...[8]
In short, the members of the party opposed to the
Church had been put out of bounds to all Catholics by the canonical
penalty of "personal interdiction."
The result of this state of affairs can be gauged by
the fact that foreign visitors to the island at that period were, to
quote a well known member of the British Parliament who was among them,
"treated with such ferocious hostility and discourtesy" that the car
they were in was shot at.[9]
The Church's vengeance against her political opponents
went even further. Not content with the mobilization of terror in this
world, she mobilized terror of the next that would pursue them beyond
the tomb.Thus Joseph Mercer, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who died
in September 1961, was not given burial where Christians were usually
interred, but was laid in a spot popularly known as the "refuse dump."
He had not even been present at the Executive Meeting of March 15, and
was a practicing Catholic. Another Labour Party member was refused
burial in the same way.[10]
As the election day approached, the Church intensified
her pressure upon all and sundry. News agents were forbidden to sell
literature opposing the Catholic party, Catholics were forbidden to put
advertisements in Labour journals. Over 80 per cent complied, for fear
of reprisals. Children were questioned by priests as to the political
attitudes of their parents, while parents not conforming to the
political dicta of the Church were denied the sacraments.
Finally, on the eve of the elections, crucifixes
draped in mourning were paraded in village squares with the caption:
"Why are you voting against Me?"
Last but not least, during polling day itself, to
complete the campaign of terror against the already cowed Maltese
Catholics, cohorts of black robed priests, nuns and monks appeared at
the voting queues and stationed themselves in front of the voters,
chanting and saying the rosary, while bedridden and practically dying
faithful were carried on stretchers to vote "for the Church and for
God." The result? The Church won."[11]
Footnotes
1. Letter from the Reverend Father Innocenzo Borg,
Parish Priest of Luqa, to The Times of Malta, February 3, 1962.
See also Suppression of Freedom of Conscience in Malta, May 28,
1962—a collection of documents and Photostats dealing with the 1962
Elections.[Back]
2. See Suppression of Freedom of Conscience and
Freedom of Speech during the Recent Elections in Malta, May 28,
1962.[Back]
3. Signed Monsignor M. Azzopardy, Director of the
Family of the Sick. Issued by the Diocesan Junta of Catholic
Organizations Movement for the Victory of Catholic Malta.[Back]
4. See Suppression of Freedom of Conscience and
Freedom of Speech during the Recent Elections in Malta, May 28,
1962.[Back]
5. Cardinal Ottaviani's reminder to Catholics
everywhere, August 1965, Rome.[Back]
6. The written instructions were distributed on March
7, 1962, a few weeks AFTER the elections. This was done for fear that,
had the written instructions been distributed before or during the
elections, the British government would have been forced to cancel the
elections, as they had done in 1930. The instructions were then put in
writing since by 1966, when the next general elections were due, Malta
would have become independent. Thus, being no longer subject to the
British government, the Church, under a Maltese administration supported
by her, would be free to act without restraint—as, indeed, she did.[Back]
7. For complete text, see Methods of Procedure for
Father Confessors and Preachers, Document "J." Photostat copies of
the Latin original are held by the Malta Labour Party. See also
Suppression of Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Speech during the
Recent Elections in Malta, Memorandum and Supporting Documents,
May, 1962.[Back]
8. Priests and Politics in Malta, 1962.[Back]
9. See Reynolds News, December 3, 1961; also
The Voice of Malta, December 10, 1961.
[Back]
10. Idem.[Back]
11. Two years later, in 1964, Malta became
independent. The date of Independence, however, due in the spring, had
to be postponed because the Church in Malta refused to accept certain
basic democratic clauses inserted by the British government in the new
Constitution, since the new Constitution, as the Secretary of State for
the Colonies said during discussion of the Malta Independence Bill in
the House of Commons, July 23, 1964, was not going to "place the
Catholic Church above the law." (Parliamentary Debates, Hansard, Volume
699, No. 149, columns 709-710).
The Maltese Church, with the connivance of her
representative, had tried every device to put herself above the
Constitution, finally counting on the time limit of thirty-six hours
before the House of Commons went into recess. Thanks, however, to Lord
Alexander of Hillsborough and others, the maneuver did not succeed. For
further documentation of the 1962 Elections in Malta, see
Suppression of Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Speech during the
Recent Elections in Malta, May 1962, Memorandum and Supporting
Documents. Also, Malta Independence Bill - Order for Second
Reading, House of Commons, July 23, 1964. Parliamentary Debates,
Hansard, Volume 699.
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