Church row highlights Maltese problems

Press, 21 August 1982, Page 14

Church row highlights Maltese problems

By

GODFREY GRIMA,

in Valletta

Maltese Premier Dorn Mintoff’s threadbare peace with the island’s once powerful Catholic Church has been shattered in what the Opposition claims is nothing more than a ploy to distract the islanders from their mounting economic and political problems. Addressing thousands of jubilant supporters last week, Mr Mintoff let loose a vitriolic tirade against the island's Archbishop, Monseigneur Joseph Mercieca. The Archbishop, he said, was not only a hypocrite but an outright supporter of the rival Nationalist Party.

The Pope, Mintoff added, had been asked officially to have the Archbishop removed. Should the Pope refuse then he must take full responsibility for the consequences. What spurred Mr .Mintoff’s no-holds-barred attack was a statement issued several days earlier by the Archbishop, in which Mr Mintoff’s regime was chided for its ruthlessness. The Archbishop was referring to the dismissal of some 200 government workers who had joined a campaign of civil disobedience launched on June 29 by the Nationalist Party. In his statement, Archbishop Mercieca charged the Government with handing out a punishment that hardly fitted the workers’ crime. Within a few days of Mr Mintoff’s attack on the Archbishop, the atmosphere within the ruling Labour Party was

charged with anti-Church feelings. In one incident Archbishop Mercieca narrowly missed being mobbed by a hostile crowd at the whanside village of Vittoriosa. The Archbishop surreptitiously left the village when the demonstrators, all Mintoff supporters, tried to enter a church where he had just said Mass. The next day hostile graffiti appeared outside the island’s famous Dome of Mosta after a visit by the Archbishop. Labour Party clubs all over the island have put up posters urging party supporters to boycott’ Church collections. The rupture of relations between Mr Mintoff and the Maltese Catholic Church, hardly comes as a surprise. Since coming to power in 1971, Mr Mintoff has brooked no affinities with the Church which in the 1960 s and 1970 s openly opposed his socialist doctrine. Privileges enjoyed by Church leaders were rescinded. Taxes were levied on Church income. A Corrupt Practices Act was introduced to muzzle priests prone to attacking the Government'from the pulpit. Churchrun hospitals have been closed. • More recently, Mr Mintoff wants private schools, most of which are run , by religious • orders, to offer Education free of charge. The Church complains this is impossible. Mr Mintoff answered with a public demand for the Church to hand over its .wealth to the Static which in turn would

finance free education by private schools. The issue is now being discussed with the Vatican but the mercurial Maltese premier is . well aware that local Church leaders are fighting his scheme. For the Maltese, Mr Mintoff’s row with the Church threatens only to add to their rapidly worsening economic and political problems. A hefty drop in tourist and export earnings this year has left the Maltese economy wallowing in difficult waters. Unemployment is rising and investments have ground to a halt. The island is also dogged by the worst political crisis since independence from Britain in 1964. After last December’s general election, which netted Dr Eddie Fenech Adami’s Nationalist' Party 4000 votes more but three parliamentary seats less than Mr Mintoff’s Labour Party, the island has been caught in the grip of acute political polarisation. In an attempt to force Mr Mintoff to hold fresh elections, the Nationalists have boycotted Parliament and the island’s State-run radio and television station. The campaign that started as a withdrawal of collaboration, has degenerated into one of civil disobedience and passive resistance. The Nationalists claim that Mr Mintoff’s row with the Church is really a ploy to distract the Maltese from their mounting political and economic difficulties. Copyright, London Observer Serviced •