INTERFERENCE ALLEGED

Taranaki Daily News, 6 June 1930, Page 9

INTERFERENCE ALLEGED

CAUSE OF MALTA TROUBLE

CHARGES AGAINST HOLY SEE

BRITISH REVIEW SITUATION

British Wireless. Rugby, June 4. Correspondence between the British Government and the Holy See, extending over the last 15 months, relative to politics and religious controversy in Malta,.is laid before Parliament in a white paper of nearly 190 pages. Mr. H. G. Chilton, British Minister to the Holy See, in a note dated March 1, 1929, refers to the popular indignation aroused in Malta by the condemnation of a priest, Father Micallef, a British subject, to leave British territory at tho command of Father Carta, who is a foreigner. The note expressed the view that the intense participation of tho Maltese priest in local politics lay at the root of the trouble and that the British Government, without wishing to intervene in that particular case, which appeared symptomatic, suggested an independent investigation on the spot by the Holy See The Archbishop of Tyana, Monsignor Robinson, thereafter visited Malta as Apostolic Delegate, and it was understood that after investigation he felt the difference between the Government and ecclesiastical authorities in Malta could best be dealt witli by definite conduct. On July 2 Cardinal Gasparn wrote to Mr. Chilton informing him that Lord Strickland, the Prime Minister of Malta, was a persona non grata to the Holy See and enclosing a copy of a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Malta and the Bishop of Gozo and a memorandum containing allegations regarding the conduct of Maltese affairs by Lord Stickland.

» COMPLAINT TO HOLY SEE. A statement thereafter handed to Cardinal Gasparri by Mr. Chilton on Aug r ust 8 complained that the Holy See had meantime broken off negotiations foi a concordat without warning or explanation. It had declared to<be-a persona non grata the head of the responsible Government in a British colony and had issued instructions to the Maltese episcopate inviting it to resist the Maltese Government, and had accused the Maltese Ministry of civil tyranny and religious persecution. It was further complained that the Vatican had prejudiced by such action the very questions which the Apostolic Delegate had, at the British Government’s request, been sent to Malta to investigate. In a document dated February 12 this year expressing grateful appreciation of the British Government’s intention to negotiate a concordat with the Vatican, Lord Strickland and the Maltese Ministers agreed to pledge themselves to restrain their supporters from provocative utterances during the election then approaching. The Vatican, however, refused to give in return instructions to the Maltese clergy to abstain during the elections from active participation in local politics and declared that no negotiations for a concordat were possible while Lord Strickland remained in power. Dispatches from Sir John Ducane, Governor of Malta, to Lord Passfield, Colonial Secretary, during April and May, stated that many cases had occurred in which priests had asked penitents in the confessional whether they intended to vote for the Constitutional Party and if the answer was in the affirmative had refused them absolution.

Specific ''samples of the refusal of absolution were cited, while a pastoral letter of the Bishops of Malta and Gozo declared it a grave sin to vote for Lord Strickland and his candidates.

An emphatic protest against this pastoral letter was lodged by the British Government with the Vatican and the resumption of negotiations made dependent upon its withdrawal, in order that complete freedom to exercise their political judgment might be restored to the electorate of the colony. The Holy See rejected this condition. The concluding . paragraph of the statement handed to the Cardinal Secretary a few days ago by the British representative at the Holy See regretted that the Vatican has not appreciated the necessity of taking practical measures to implement its assurance of willingness to do all in its power to restore public tranquillity and continued: "Instead of this the. Holy See has now refused to take the steps necessary for the restoration of normal political life in Malta, while before that it delayed for many months the, long-promised negotiations for defining the relations between Church and State in the islands and had finally rendered them impossible by attaching a condition as to the personality of the head of the Maltese Administration, which constitutes nothing less than a claim to interfere in the domestic politics of a British colony.”

MATTER OF CIVIL LIBERTY. LONDON PRESS’ GRAVE VIEW. Rec. 9.45 p.m. London, June 5. The gravity of the Malta issue is reflected by the prominence given by the Press. The Daily Telegraph, in an editorial, says neither the British nor any other Government could be expected to take up any other attitude on the matter, which is exclusively one of civil liberty in modern States. The Times says it is not permissible that foreign influence shall dictate who is or is not to be head of a British dependency.