Douglas Brown defended

IN taking exception to Mr.
Douglas Brown for his article of December 6 on Malta, Fr. Charles Vella must have put his tongue in his cheek while affirming (December 27) that "not even at the time of the 1962 General Elections was such a statement (that it was a mortal sin to vote for the Malta Labour Party) made by the Archbishop." Otherwise,
by propounding such an assertion, Fr. Vella persists in wishfully deceiving himself.
A few months before the 1962 General Elections, the Archbishop of Malta issued a circular letter strongly condemning not only "the support of Malta Labour Party leaders" but also "the writing, the reading and selling of AlHelsien and the Voice of Malta (Malta Labour Party newspapers.) In that same circular, in a directive to confessors, such condemned deeds were referred to as "such sins."
Moreover, the Archbishop's electoral Pastoral Letter of January 25, 1962, was a chain of invective against the "evils" (sic) of the Malta Labour Party, flavoured with rhetoric such as "how can you, who claim to be Catholics, send into power by means of your vote, persons of anti-Catholic, anti-clerical and Socialist principles . . .?"
He sounded off, for good measure, with directives such as "see that no one among you, faithful sons and daughters of the Church, remain neutral, or hesitates to vote for candidates from whom the Church has nothing to fear . . . this is an obligation of conscience with which is bound the greatest responsibility."
Coming to the last election (1966) the Archbishop reiterated the 1962 stance, since "there are still important principles upon which agreement has not been reached" and thus "the question has not been settled." So much so that on the first day of the election, Mgr. Saydon (a biblical scholar of international repute) was suspended a divinis by the Archbishop for contending "It is not a sin to vote Labour".
Fr. Vella's letter should not be passed over in silence. It indeed makes sad reading for it is nothing more than an improvident ploy, doing nobody any good in its attempt to daub off the recent faults of the Church authorities in Malta.
John Crech Valletta, Malta.