CLASH WITH VATICAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 603, 4 March 1929, Page 9

CLASH WITH VATICAN

LORD STRICKLAND’S POSITION REPORTED EXCOMMUNICATION (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Saturday. A message from Rome says the “Corriere d’ltalia” states definitely that Lord Strickland, Prime Minister of Malta, has been excommunicated by conduct hostile to the Church and to ecclesiastical instittuions. His excommunication does not need to be publicly or formally announced. A telegram from Malta says Lord Strickland dnnies the reports of his excommuniction. Sir Augustus Bartolo, Minister of Public Instruction and Migration, in defining the respective spheres of the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions, made it clear to the Senate that nothing would deflect the Government from protecting a British subject from banishment from British territory and his own country under the pretext of religious discipline. Reute’s correspondent reports that public opinion is strongly behind the Government. It was reported on Friday that Father Carta, Italian supporter of the Franciscans, had ordered Padre Mica lief, one of Lord Strickland's prominent partisans, to leave Malta. Thereupon the padre appealed to the Prime Minister, who countermanded the order on the ground that an Italian subject had no right to deport a British Maltese. When Father Carta reported the incident to the Vatican it excommunicated Padre Micallef.