The ‘Interdett’ - When Archbishop Gonzi Made Mintoff’s Labour Party a Mortal Sin
- Spunt Malta
- Sep 4
- 14 min read
The Maltese Interdett of the 1960s was a dramatic clash between the Catholic Church and Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party. This “bloodless war” deeply divided Malta, as Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi declared it a mortal sin for Catholics to support the Labour Party. Below, we recount the causes, key episodes, and lasting impact of this extraordinary chapter in Maltese history.
This post is a collaboration with Lovin Malta.
Church and State Tensions Before the Interdett
In mid-20th-century Malta, the Catholic Church wielded enormous influence over society and politics. The seeds of the 1960s interdiction were sown decades earlier. In 1930, during a conflict with Prime Minister Gerald Strickland, the local Church had already flexed its muscle by declaring that voting for Strickland’s Constitutional Party (and its ally, the then-small Labour movement) was a mortal sin. That early church intervention even led to a constitutional crisis, foreshadowing future confrontations.
After World War II, Malta’s politics became increasingly polarised. Dom Mintoff, a fiery socialist leader from the harbour area of Cottonera, rose to prominence as head of the Malta Labour Party (MLP). Mintoff’s vision for Malta was staunchly secular and socialistic – something the Church found threatening. In 1955, Mintoff became Prime Minister on a platform of integrating Malta with the United Kingdom. Archbishop Gonzi vehemently opposed this integration plan, fearing it would diminish the Catholic Church’s status (possibly in favour of the Anglican Church under British rule). During the 1956 integration referendum, the Church openly campaigned against Mintoff’s proposal – even hanging banners in polling stations warning, “When you’re voting, God will see you and judge you.” Voter turnout was low (around 60%), undercutting Mintoff’s victory in the referendum. Although integration passed on paper, it was abandoned amid these pressures.
Tensions escalated further in 1958 when Mintoff resigned as Prime Minister after a crisis over the closing of the British naval dockyard. The ensuing protests and strikes by Labour supporters were condemned by Archbishop Gonzi. In return, Mintoff lambasted the Archbishop as an “imperial lackey” for siding with the colonial authorities. By the end of the 1950s, relations between the Church and Labour had deteriorated into open animosity, with mutual accusations of undermining each other’s authority. Mintoff began championing full independence for Malta coupled with a secular state, a prospect the Church viewed with alarm. The stage was set for an unprecedented confrontation.
Causes of the 1961 Interdiction: Faith vs Socialism
The main factor was Labour’s stance on social issues. The MLP was increasingly vocal about creating a secular Malta. Mintoff and his deputies outlined proposals (eventually known as the Six Points) that horrified the clergy: introducing civil marriage (and even discussion of future divorce laws), removing mandatory religious teaching from state schools, ensuring everyone had a right to a civil burial in state cemeteries, curbing the Church’s privileged say in censorship and public morality laws, and asserting that even priests must be equal under civil law. These ideas struck at the heart of the Church’s temporal power. Archbishop Gonzi saw them as a direct attack on traditional Catholic Malta.
Archbishop Gonzi and his circle also became convinced that Mintoff’s socialist ideals and foreign alliances were a grave danger to Malta’s Catholic identity. Mintoff maintained international ties with socialist countries and was even a member of the Fabian Society in Britain. In the fevered Cold War atmosphere of the late 1950s, Gonzi became obsessed with the idea that Mintoff might be a “closet Communist” who would turn Malta into a Mediterranean Cuba if he ever gained power in an independent Malta.
One particular Labour policy statement became the flashpoint. In early 1961, the Labour Party declared it would accept help from any country (East or West) as long as it came with no strings attached, in pursuit of Malta’s self-determination. To Archbishop Gonzi, this sounded like Mintoff was willing to take aid from the Soviet Union or align with godless communism. Coupled with Mintoff’s calls for the separation of church and state, this was the final straw for the Archbishop. He saw it as an existential threat: if Mintoff’s vision came to pass, the Church’s dominant role in Maltese society could be relegated to the sidelines. As Gonzi himself put it, he feared Labour would “relegate the Church to the sacristy” – stripping away its public influence.
The 1961 Interdett: Archbishop Gonzi’s Ban on Labour
On 7–8 April 1961, Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi took the drastic step of imposing an interdict (known in Maltese as L-Interdett) on the Labour Party’s top officials and supporters. An interdict is a severe Church censure just short of excommunication. It barred those targeted from participating in key sacraments and rituals of the Church. Gonzi’s decree specifically interdicted the MLP Executive Committee (Mintoff and his closest associates) by name. Very quickly, however, the ban’s scope widened: the Church announced that anyone who voted for the Labour Party, attended Labour mass meetings, or even simply read or distributed Labour-affiliated newspapers would also be in a state of mortal sin. In effect, supporting the Labour Party in any way became spiritually forbidden for Catholics.
This was not entirely without precedent. The Maltese Church had used spiritual sanctions in politics before, but never on such a sweeping scale. The edict meant that devout Catholics who defied it risked damnation and were denied the sacraments of confession, Holy Communion, and marriage in the church. Priests were instructed not to give absolution to known Labour supporters unless they renounced their political “error.” The Archbishop even compiled lists of banned publications: Labour’s newspapers (such as Il-Ħelsien, Voice of Malta, and The Struggle) were condemned; anyone printing, selling, or reading them was told they were committing sin.
The interdict also carried dire consequences for the life events of those under its shadow. For instance, Catholic marriage in Malta normally took place on the main altar of a church, a sacred honour. But interdicted individuals were only allowed to marry in the sacristy, the side room, and using rites usually reserved for mixed-religion couples. This was a deliberate sign that, despite being baptised Catholics, Labourites were being treated as quasi-outsiders by the Church.
A famous case was that of Dr. Joe Micallef Stafrace, a Labour official, who in 1961 was denied a church wedding in the normal way. Archbishop Gonzi personally told him that only if he “converted” (renounced his Labour activism) would the Archbishop himself gladly preside at a full church ceremony. Micallef Stafrace refused to repent, and so he and his fiancée were married humbly in a sacristy. Even then, their wedding day turned into an ordeal – a group of zealous Catholic youth gathered outside, ringing church bells loudly and singing hymns to taunt the couple, even urging the bride to abandon her “cursed” groom. Another prominent Labour figure, Lino Spiteri, also had to marry in a sacristy around that time; in fact, his wedding ceremony was conducted in English, as if he were not a Catholic Maltese but a foreigner, to symbolise his censured status.
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the interdiction was its treatment of death. If a Labour supporter under interdict died, the person was denied a funeral mass in the main church and burial in consecrated ground. Instead, they were interred in a designated portion of the cemetery that was not blessed by the Church. In Malta’s main Addolorata Cemetery, this section, physically set apart by a wall, became infamously known as “il-Miżbla,” literally “the dump” or “rubbish heap.” (This was a cruel nickname implying these souls were spiritually discarded.) Between 1961 and 1963, at least seven Labour Party officials died while under interdiction, including Ġużè Ellul Mercer, a former Deputy Prime Minister and respected author. All were buried in that lonely, unblessed plot. Tombstones in the Miżbla area had no crosses or religious emblems, a stark reminder of their spiritual banishment. The image of grieving families having to bury their loved ones “outside” the Catholic fold shocked many and left lasting trauma in the community.
Archbishop Gonzi did not act alone in enforcing the Interdett. A network of militant Catholic lay organisations (known as il-Ġunta, or the Catholic Action committee) mobilised to make the ban biting. These groups would effectively police their parishes: church bells were sometimes rung incessantly whenever Labour held a rally or march, to literally drown out Mintoff’s speeches. Parish priests routinely used their sermons to rail against the “dangers” of socialism and to identify Labour leaders as enemies of the faith. Reports from that era speak of some priests even refusing Holy Communion to parishioners if they suspected them of Labour sympathies. The entire country was thrust into a kind of religious cold war.
A Divided Society Under the Ban
The Interdett period (1961–1964, and in some aspects up to 1969) deeply divided Maltese society. In a country nearly 100% Catholic, the Church’s declaration forced people to make an agonising choice between their religious obligations and their political beliefs. This led to bitter splits within communities and even within families. There were instances of spouses at odds and siblings not speaking because one sided with Labour and the other obeyed the Church.
Many Labour supporters were themselves devout Catholics who suddenly found their faith pitted against their loyalty to Mintoff’s movement. For these people, the psychological toll was immense: being told they were in a state of sin and headed for hell simply for their politics. As one historian noted, for a poor, hard-working Labourite of strong faith, “Gonzi took away the one thing that gave them hope – the promise of salvation. Now they were damned no matter what they did on earth.” This spiritual terror left wounds that would linger for decades.
Social life also suffered a schism. Those branded “Laburisti” (Labourites) were ostracized in many towns and villages. They might find themselves unwelcome in the village band club or soccer team, and their children might be bullied at school as “ta’ Mintoff” (Mintoff’s lot). Job opportunities could evaporate too. Malta’s institutions (from the civil service to private businesses) were often run by conservative Catholics who would quietly blacklist known Labour families. At social functions or festas, people kept their politics close to the chest for fear of public shaming. The Interdett became a form of social exile: fervent Nationalist (PN) supporters and lay Church groups sometimes literally shunned interdicted individuals in public, refusing to even shake their hand or say “Bongu” in the street.
Yet, amidst the intimidation, the Labour Party’s core base adopted a siege mentality. Those who defiantly stood by Labour began referring to themselves proudly as “Suldat tal-Azzar” (“soldiers of stee”). They wore the Church’s punishment as a badge of honour, signalling that their resolve had been tempered, not broken. It’s estimated that tens of thousands of Maltese (some sources say about 50,000 people) still voted Labour in 1962 despite the spiritual penalties. In Labour strongholds, people attended Labour meetings in secret or read the banned party newspapers behind closed doors. There was even a sort of counter-solidarity among the interdicted: they would gather in each other’s homes to pray together, since some priests refused them communion. Over time, the very hardships imposed by the Interdett galvanized Labour’s supporters into a close-knit community of resistance.
The cultural fallout was significant. This period taught Maltese Catholics a harsh lesson about the fusion of religion and politics. Many who lived through the 1960s Interdett emerged with a more skeptical view of clerical authority. Even after the ban ended, a segment of Malta’s population remained resentful of the Church. For some Labour-leaning families, the memory was so bitter that, for generations, they kept minimal involvement in church activities. It became common in staunch Labour homes to hang portraits of Dom Mintoff on the wall, sometimes literally taking the place of a crucifix or saint’s image, as if to declare that their political messiah had stood by them when the institutional Church cast them out. The trauma of those years created an “us vs. them” mentality that in some respects still echoes in Malta’s political divide today.
Political Consequences: Elections and Independence
In raw political terms, Archbishop Gonzi’s strategy initially achieved its aim. The general election of February 1962 was fought under the Interdett’s shadow, and the results were a disaster for Mintoff’s Labour Party. At Mass on Sundays leading up to the vote, priests warned congregations that voting for Labour would endanger their souls. Many voters heeded the warning or stayed home. Labour’s share of the vote plummeted, costing it seven seats in Parliament. The opposition Nationalist Party (PN), led by Dr. George Borg Olivier, won the election handily. This victory paved the way for Borg Olivier to lead Malta to independence in 1964, with the blessing of the Church.
During the 1962 campaign, the Church openly portrayed the contest as a life-or-death struggle for Catholic Malta. Catholic lay groups described Labour’s leaders as “Mixjutin” or “Mintoffian devils” that needed to be exorcised from public life. Under such pressure, Mintoff had little chance. In fact, the Labour Party lost again in the 1966 election, albeit by a smaller margin, partly because many people still remembered the Church’s warnings (the formal ban was starting to ease by then, but its effects lingered).
As Malta became independent in September 1964, relations between the new PN government and the Church were very cozy. The 1964 Independence Constitution even declared Roman Catholicism as the official state religion and guaranteed the Church various privileges (for example, Church schools continued to be subsidized, and the state upheld a ban on things like divorce and abortion in line with Catholic teaching). Mintoff’s Labour opposition, which boycotted the 1964 independence celebrations in protest, felt vindicated that the Church had merely traded British colonial masters for continued ecclesiastical dominance. From 1964 to 1971, Malta was essentially governed by an informal Church-PN alliance, with Archbishop Gonzi often consulted behind the scenes on key national decisions.
However, these short-term “wins” for the Church had a longer-term cost. The blatant clerical interference in democratic politics gradually drew criticism even from some Nationalist supporters and intellectuals. A new generation of Maltese, influenced by post-Vatican II liberal Catholic ideas and by Western European trends, began questioning whether the Church should wield such direct power. By the late 1960s, some moderation was creeping in: fewer priests were willing to denounce parishioners openly, and more lay Catholics quietly ignored political edicts from the pulpit.
Dom Mintoff, for his part, bided his time. He remained Opposition leader throughout the 1960s and worked to modernize his party’s image. Labour still championed secularism and social justice, but Mintoff was careful to reassure voters that he wasn’t a communist bent on suppressing religion, rather, he insisted he just wanted the Church out of government. Over the decade, as memories of the early 1960s bitterness slowly faded and as global Catholic attitudes shifted, more Maltese were willing to give Labour another chance.
The End of the Interdiction and Reconciliation
The Interdett formally lasted through most of the 1960s. In practice, its enforcement began to relax after a few years. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) in Rome ushered in a spirit of reform within the Catholic Church, emphasizing the Church’s primary spiritual mission over temporal battles. Pope John XXIII and, later, Pope Paul VI were believed to have frowned on the Maltese situation, seeing it as too extreme. Sensing the changing winds, some local clergy started working quietly to heal the rift. Notably, Monsignor Emanuel Gerada, a Maltese priest with connections in the Vatican, acted as an intermediary in the late 1960s to find a solution acceptable to both sides.
By 1964, after Malta’s independence (and possibly under some pressure from Rome), Archbishop Gonzi lifted the personal interdict on the Labour Party executive. The most punitive aspects of the ban were phased out: for example, by 1965–66 the directive declaring it a sin to read or publish Labour newspapers was scrapped, and those publications could circulate freely again. The climate of fear was slowly thawing. Then came a decisive breakthrough, on 4 April 1969, the Church in Malta and the Labour Party issued a joint declaration effectively making peace. In this remarkable document (sometimes dubbed a six-point “peace treaty”), both sides affirmed new principles: “In modern society, it is necessary to distinguish between the political community and the Church… The Church does not impose spiritual sanctions (mortal sin) as a form of political censorship.” The statement also acknowledged that relations between the Church and the MLP “have improved a lot.” In short, the Church agreed it would not again use its spiritual authority to directly interfere in partisan politics, and Labour reaffirmed the Church’s right to speak on moral issues while pledging to respect religion’s spiritual role.
This 1969 reconciliation marked the official end of the Interdett. It came nine years after the interdict was first imposed, nearly a decade of Maltese life dominated by this feud. Archbishop Gonzi, now in his 70s, had to accept that times had changed. Just the year before, in 1968, Malta had seen its first-ever general election without bishops dictating voting morality, and the sky hadn’t fallen. The Vatican’s hand was undoubtedly at play in nudging Gonzi to make peace, as the Church worldwide was stepping back from such open political entanglements.
With the ban lifted, the path was clear for Dom Mintoff to climb back to power. In June 1971, Mintoff’s Labour Party won the general election, unseating the Nationalists. It was an ironic turn of fate: the very man the Church once demonised as a danger to Malta was now Prime Minister, this time, with no threat of excommunication hanging over voters. Once in office, Mintoff pursued many of the secular reforms he had promised. During the 1970s, his government introduced civil marriage (1975) and removed some traditional privileges of the Church (for example, taking over some Church-run hospitals and schools into state hands, though always negotiating terms with Church authorities). Over time, a new modus vivendi was established between Church and State: Malta remained culturally Catholic, but the government under Labour asserted its primacy in temporal matters.
Archbishop Gonzi retired in 1976 and was succeeded by Archbishop Joseph Mercieca, a leader of a much more conciliatory style who focused on pastoral work rather than political confrontation. The era of pastoral letters telling people how to vote was essentially over. The Church in Malta gradually found a new balance, preaching on ethical issues but avoiding naming parties or punishing voters.
Lasting Legacy of the Interdett
Though the active conflict ended, the legacy of the Interdett has cast a long shadow over Malta’s national consciousness. The 1960s Church–Labour clash helped define the country’s political identity, entrenching a two-party culture with strong tribal loyalties. Older generations of Maltese who lived through the Interdett often passed down their stories (and grudges) to their children. Within staunch Labour families, the memory of being treated as second-class Catholics fueled a lingering scepticism towards the clergy and the Nationalist establishment. For many, the martyrs of the Interdiction – people like Ġużè Ellul Mercer – became folk heroes, honored as having sacrificed for principles of equality and freedom from clerical control.
On the other side, conservative and Nationalist-leaning families remembered the era as a righteous stand to “save” Malta from godless socialism. This, too was passed down, contributing to a polarized narrative of good vs evil in politics. The result is that Maltese political discourse even today can be highly charged, with echoes of that old “religion vs Labour” framing. Thankfully, those extremes have softened with time, especially as Malta has grown more pluralistic. By the 1980s and 90s, the Church’s influence in elections waned significantly, and new issues (like EU membership, corruption, economy) replaced religion as the main electoral battlegrounds.
The Interdett also indirectly spurred Malta’s journey toward a more secular state. The blatant overreach by the Church in the 60s eventually made later generations more open to reforms. In recent years Malta has, for instance, legalized divorce (in 2011 via referendum) and even legalized same-sex marriage (in 2017), changes that would have been unthinkable in the Interdett days. The Church, while still an important moral voice, has not been able to mobilize voters in the same way again. It’s fair to say the Interdett episode taught both the Maltese Church and politicians a hard lesson about the limits of mixing the pulpit with the ballot box.
Finally, there has been a push to remember and heal the wounds of the Interdiction. In 2019, almost 60 years after the events, Malta’s current Archbishop Charles Scicluna publicly visited the “unconsecrated” graves of Interdett victims like Ellul Mercer. In a poignant ceremony, Scicluna blessed the tombs and prayed for forgiveness for the Church’s actions, acknowledging the suffering caused. Many saw this as a meaningful gesture of reconciliation. However, some in the Labour camp have called for even more tangible recognition – such as monuments or the naming of public spaces, to honor those who “died in exile on Maltese soil” because of the Interdett.
At the end of the day, the 1961 Interdett in Malta stands out as one of the darkest yet most defining chapters in the island’s modern history. No blood was shed, but the conflict scarred the nation’s psyche. Its resolution laid the groundwork for the Malta we know today, a country with strong Catholic traditions, yet one where church and state now occupy more separate spheres. The story of the Interdett serves as a powerful reminder of how easily fear and fervour can divide a people, and how important it is for a society to find a path to forgiveness and unity after such an ordeal.
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