Question: I heard that the Catholic Church put pressure on
Catholics to vote a certain way during the 1962 election in Malta. Could
you tell me about it?
Answer: In 1962 the Catholic authorities compelled the faithful
to vote against a certain political party. They did not allow the people
to vote
according to their conscience. History records:
Mintoff [the leader of the Labour Party] had formulated proposals
for state-church relations which envisaged the separation of church
and state. He proposed the recognition of civil marriage, the
abolition of mandatory religious education; the inspection by
state-officials of subsidized, mainly Catholic, private schools; the
dispensation of social services to all inhabitants without any sort of
favouritism; financial restrictions to be placed on the church; the
exclusion of church intervention in the state censorship of books and
films; the limitation of privilegium fori (thanks to which the
Bishop could not be taken to a government court); and lastly the end
of meddling in politics by ecclesiastics. During the dispute
churchgoers were advised to refrain from voting for Mintoff's party.
Refusal to do so would mean interdiction. It became a mortal sin to
vote Labour. (Cassar C., A Concise History of Malta, p 238).
The Catholic Church used the pulpit, the confessional, the media and
even the public meetings in its vigorous campaign. I asked my father
about his experience. During confession, the priest asked
him how he intended to vote in the general election and refused to give
him absolution. An interdicted person was prohibited from church life and the
sacraments, and in the case of death, he would be buried in the unconsecrated section of
the cemetery called "il-mizbla" (literally, the rubbish dump),
implying that his soul was damned. The memory of the dead was disgraced
and his family was humiliated.
This sad episode from the ecclesiastical history of my country is a
reminder of the true nature of the Catholic institution. Whenever it was
possible, Rome has employed coercion, compulsion and even violence to
promote itself.
Christ equipped His church with the Word
of truth, and love, and not with threats and compulsion. He would have
us reason with people. We cannot compel them to change their mind or to
act contrary to their conscience. God alone can grant repentance. "And
a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to
teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if
God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth" (2 Timothy 2:24,25).