[WATCH] Malta’s Interdett: Scicluna exorcises Mikiel Gonzi’s legacy

Lecturer Michael Grech and former Labour minister Joe Micallef Stafrace explain the 1961 interdict and why the Archbishop's blessing of the graves is an important gesture

The imposition of moral sanction against Labour activists in 1961 was one of the last attempts by the Maltese Catholic hierarchy to impose its political power directly without relying on political intermediaries, as it did under Nationalist administrations between 1962 and 1971 and between 1987 and 2013.

The notorious interdiction (interdett) may have been spurred by Archbishop Michael Gonzi’s unfounded fear of Labour’s leader Dom Mintoff as a communist in disguise, but ultimately it was designed to cripple the emerging anti-colonialist movement that could steer Malta into modernity.

It was a war against change: Gonzi did not just want to cripple Labour’s chances in the 1962 election, to the Nationalists’ advantage. He propped up the smaller ‘umbrella’ parties such as Toni Pellegrini’s Christian Workers Party, opposed to full independence from the United Kingdom, in a bid at chipping away from Labour’s votes. The reason was simple. The British saw the Church as an ally best left undisturbed, and nurtured it in keeping order in the fortress colony. That’s why Gonzi feared Mintoff’s integration proposal even more than independence, probably as it would have brought Malta even closer to the European mainstream than independence itself.

Sins of the father: the chipped gravestone of Gorg Gravina, who died at 39, having told the priest who denied him the last rites that he was a reader of the newspaper Il-Helsien. He was denied burial in the Zejtun cemetery; Bormla man Toni Zahra, a known activist and follower of Mintoff; and Amleto Spiteri, uncle of the late Labour minister Lino Spiteri, denied burial in the family grave

Taming Labour

Since the 1920s, Gonzi – who actually had represented the nascent Labour Party in the Senate – toyed with the idea of reining in the workers’ movement and immunising it from European socialism and its French revolutionary roots. A reactionary, Gonzi made little distinction between Mintoff’s Fabian socialism and anti-colonialism, and Soviet communism. To him Protestantism, democratic socialism and anti-colonialism were threats to the status quo. Labour’s identification with the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation, a Third World solidarity movement that included communist sympathisers, was the pretext for the 1961 edict.

Gonzi was not even enthusiastic for the transformation of the Nationalist Party into a mass party on the model of European Christian-democracy. He simply preferred to divide and rule and prevent a strong government, in a bid to freeze time while conditioning Malta’s quest for independence. He failed in his first objective but succeeded in the second. It came by way of a ‘condemnation’ from the Diocesan Commission, that branded the reading of Labour Party literature a mortal sin. With it came the interdiction of the Labour Party’s executive committee.

Sure enough it was Labour stalwarts and their families who experienced the humiliation and pain of being deprived of the final rites of passage in what was still a society defined by Catholicism. To live meant being at peace with the Church, to die was to pass into the hands of God. To be denied that, was to be denied that peace and salvation. Labour deputy leader Guze Ellul Mercer died in 1962, and was ignominiously buried in an unconsecrated area of the Addolarata cemetery derisively known as the ‘mizbla’ or ‘rubbish tip’. Humiliation kept family members away from his own funeral, blessed by his own brother, a Franciscan monk. Other Labour voters were buried in the same part where Archbishop Charles Scicluna delivered his symbolic gesture of forgiveness on All Saints Day.

The interdiction, however, also slowed the PN’s own evolution into a mass party capable of winning power on the basis of a social programme, rather than relying exclusively on the Church’s power. And that also meant slowing down Malta’s passage into European democracy. The PN’s leader and prime minister Gorg Borg Olivier himself had to stand his ground against Gonzi’s demand for a “morality police” tasked with enforcing decency laws amidst Malta’s first tourism boom.

Guze Ellul Mercer died in 1962 and was buried in unconsecrated ground

The Labour executive of 1961 was firmly under a state of condemnation by the Catholic hierarchy

Overtaken by history

Gonzi was, of course, of a conservative clerical tradition, ideologically opposed to western liberalism, refusing to relinquish his temporal power at all costs. But he was overtaken by changes in the universal church itself, when Pope John XXIII reached out to modernity and democracy in Vatican Council II. And it was this very climate of religious détente that paved the way Malta’s own Good Friday agreement in 1969: the end of the interdiction that also paved the way for Mintoff’s victory in 1971.

But the interdict’s divisive legacy of resentment was hard to exorcise. And in 1971, Mintoff hurried Malta into its first leap to modernity with the introduction of civil marriage and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, but falling short of more substantial reforms like introducing divorce, opposed by his own party’s rank and file who despite being ostracised by the Church, remained conservative.

The residue of the interdiction’s resentment deepened partisan rivalries, which re-erupted in the 1980s.

Mintoff’s creation of a rival power structure to the all-powerful Church had by then turned him into a ‘Caudillo’ which increasingly exhibited authoritarian traits. And the Maltese Church, though less politically assertive, remained inward-looking, jealous of its privileges. The newly-elected PN government in 1987 was willing to concede it new powers, allowing the ecclesiastical courts supreme authority over the Maltese courts over marriage annulments, a veritable throwback to the Middle Ages, and this was only reversed by the strength of Joseph Muscat’s super-majority in 2013, which came in the wake of the watershed divorce referendum.

Meet the new boss: newly-elected PM Joseph Muscat in 2013 discusses his agenda with Charles Scicluna (left) and Paul Cremona

After the watershed

Now faced with the most secular government in Maltese history, the Maltese Church found itself in a quandary. The task of resolving this crisis fell on Archbishop Charles Scicluna, whose forays into the political debate were often shot down by Labour supporters as proof of the Church’s historical opposition to the Labour Party.

But unlike Gonzi’s Church, Scicluna has little political power left to relinquish and is more keen in asserting its moral leadership in a landscape where it is increasingly competing with different voices, including some even more conservative and intransigent than the Curia’s itself.

Scicluna himself, recognising the relegation of the Church from power-wielder to a dissenting voice, took it upon himself to right the historical wrongs committed by Gonzi. Perhaps by blessing the ‘mizbla’ graves, Scicluna is eyeing a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Labourites who see red whenever he dares criticise Muscat’s government. Previous bishops had limited themselves to apologise for the pain caused by the interdiction, but Scicluna went one step forward by actually blessing the unconsecrated graves.

It may well be that Scicluna has discovered that it is Gonzi’s divisive legacy which cripples his own attempts to turn the Church into a vibrant social movement without fear to speak truth to power, and without any pretensions of reclaiming its temporal powers.

Yet, beyond an evident antipathy for Muscat (betrayed by Scicluna’s tweets on inconsequential issues like the light-fixtures on Castille) it has never been clear in which direction Scicluna’s Church is moving and whether rank-and-file clergy are following the more liberal overtures of their bishops.

Scicluna is too enlightened to be dismissed as some ante-diluvian conservative, but he remains too aligned with traditional elites to transform the Church into a social movement against growing inequalities and environmental destruction, a niche which more conservative elements could try to fill. His tweets could betray an anti-Labour bias rather than the mere concerns of a follower of Pope Francis, whose papacy has been anything but apolitical in its advocacy for social justice.

This resentment at Scicluna could inform his cautiousness on social media, possibly allowing him to reach out to Labour voters, including those who harbour doubts on Muscat’s direction, even though they shun any clerical intrusion in politics.

The Maltese Church’s own identity crisis may well have left room for a more conservative fringe, seemingly represented by the cleric David Muscat, who in complete disregard to Scicluna’s firm stance against racism, openly cavorts with the far-right while claiming to represent a folksy revolt against corrupt, financial elites. No surprise then, that while welcoming Scicluna’s bold decision to bless the graves, Joseph Muscat was quick to remind him of his own internal problem, and clamp down on the anti-immigrant firebrand in his own house. Like Gonzi, the TV-frenzied David Muscat also is keen on keeping Malta frozen in time.

Former Labour minister Joe Micallef Stafrace married in the church’s sacristy after being denied a proper wedding at the altar because of the interdiction

On remembering and forgiving, by Joe Micallef Stafrace

To me Archbishop Scicluna’s blessing of Guze Ellul Mercer’s grave was a beautiful and unexpected gesture, because Guze Ellul Mercer’s grave is a symbol for all Labourites. I have only praise for this gesture without the need of any qualifications.

While the wall separating the unconsecrated part of the burial ground from the rest of the cemetery was removed in 1969, Scicluna’s gesture went one step further in healing the historical wound after Archbishop Joseph Mercieca had apologised for the pain caused in the interdiction.

The unconsecrated ground in which Ellul Mercer was buried was dubbed the ‘mizbla’, something which caused deep anguish in relatives of people denied this final rite of passage. People were divided between ‘good ones’ and ‘evil ones’, between those whose place in heaven had been reserved, and those bound for hell, arguing between themselves whether they had one in the first or second row and us who were destined to hell.

It was not just members of the party’s executive who were impacted directly by the interdiction, but thousands of Labour voters who had been told that voting labour was a mortal sin.

I was the editor of Labour’s newspaper Is-Sebh when my family was denied from fully experiencing an important rite in Maltese life. My greatest regret is that my wife had to pass through it. Her bridal dress was sown by her mother. Her family wished to see her accompanied by her father to the altar. Instead we entered the church from the back and into the sacristy. When Yvonne was asked whether she’d take me as her husband she yelled out ‘yes’, her voice resounding well beyond the thick walls of the sacristy!

To add to the humiliation, a group of youths chanted politically charged hymns outside the church.

But I make a firm distinction between the duty to remember these events and remaining resentful or bear a grudge. Memories cannot be erased, but one should forgive without forgetting, and remember without too much bitterness. I was directly involved and an apology does not heal all wounds but one should not remain stuck in the past. History is life’s teacher but one should not remain anchored in the past.

As time passes, so will the vivid memories of its protagonists become part of history. People younger than 40 have no personal recollection of these events, although those slightly older may remember being told by the priest not to buy Labour newspapers.

It was Auxiliary Bishop Emmanuel Gerada who cleared the ground for the lifting of the interdict in 1969. He had been sent from abroad to look at the Maltese context in an objective way, leading to the Good Friday agreement signed 50 years ago, proclaiming the principle that the Church has every right to say what’s right or wrong without using the sword of mortal sin.

I am a firm believer in the Church’s freedom of expression, and I admire Joseph Muscat for recognising the right of the Church to speak out. But I think some people should exercise more prudence in the way they speak out, and be less predictable and more effective in their criticism.