Devil's Work

Maltese rejoicings at the narrow escape of Prime Minister Baron Strickland from a would-be-assassin who fired at pointblank range (TIME, June 2) were about to culminate in the singing of a glad Te Deum in St. John's Cathedral at Valletta last week, when suddenly this hymn in praise of God for what he had done was countermanded by Archbishop Caruana.

Among the ignorant rabble a fearful rumor spread: the fact of three misses at close range was the work not of God but of the Devil! An assumption grew that the Death of Baron Strickland would have been sustained with a minimum of sorrow by Archbishop Caruana and his superiors.

Simultaneously in London the British Foreign Office released a Blue Book, laid bare a long and acrimonious correspondence between Foreign Minister Arthur Henderson and the Papal Secretary of State. The Government of His Majesty George V announce in this denouement their considered opinion that the representatives of the Papacy in Malta have acted in a manner which "constitutes nothing less than a claim to interfere with the domestic politics of a British colony."

Acts cited include the Pastoral Letter issued early in May by the Archbishops of Malta and Gozo in which they declared that the Government of Malta was "in a state of rebellion against the word of the Pope" and announced that "Catholics, therefore, without committing a grave sin, may not vote for the party of Lord Strickland." As a result of this pastoral the Governor, General Sir John Du Cane, postponed the election indefinitely.

The act of Baron Strickland which His Holiness apparently considered "disobedience" was to keep on the Island of Malta a pro-British priest who wished to stay there but had been ordered by his pro-Italian Bishop to leave. Nearly all the citizens of Malta are Roman Catholic, but between the pro-British and the pro-Italians cleavage is sharp.

The British Blue Book further shows that in March of this year the Holy See informed His Majesty's Government that they "could not consent to a concordat on Malta so long as Lord Strickland [a Roman Catholic] remained in power." Vexed to the bottom of his stubborn Glasgow soul, Foreign Minister Arthur Henderson made his final reply to Pope Pius XI by withdrawing the British Minister to the Holy See, Henry Getty Chilton.

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