MALTESE PADRE EXCOMMUNICATED

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6849, 2 March 1929, Page 9

MALTESE PADRE EXCOMMUNICATED

CIVIL AUTHORITY. SIR GERALD STRICKLAND RAISES A HORNETS’ NEST. United Press Association —By Eleetrie Telegraph—Copyright. Received Friday, 9.45 p.m. MALTA, Feb. 28. There has been a sensational result of Sir Gerald Strickland’s alleged interference in disciplinary matters of a Franciscan monastery.

Father Carta, the Italian Superior of the Franciscans, ordered Padre Micallof, one of Sir Gerald Strickland's prominent partisans, to leave Malta, upon which Padre Micallef appealed to the Chief Minister, who countermanded tho order, on the

grounds that an Italian subject had no right to deport a British Maltese. When Father Carta reported the incident to tho Vatican, the latter excommunicated Micallef.

The Archbishop of Malta also issued a pastoral, stating that disobedience of the Church’s laws were punished, by the Sacred Canons with excommunication.

This is regarded as an indirect reference to Sir Gerald Strickland and Maltese Catholics ask if he is automatically excommunicated himself. The Italian Press was recently violently attacking Sir Gerald, declaring ho was a Freemason and was persecuting Italian Maltese-