"Erastian!"

In Vatican City last week the Secretariat of State of His Holiness Pope Pius XI issued their White Book in reply to the British Blue Book on Malta (TIME, June 16 and 23). In effect the Anglo-Papal quarrel has simmered down to this:

Granting, as both parties do, that many a Roman Catholic priest in Malta told his flock that to vote in a certain way would be a "mortal sin"* (for which absolution would be refused), does this constitute interference by the clergy in political affairs?

"Yes!" declared the British Blue Book: There can be no doubt that the clergy told the people not to vote for Prime Minister Baron Strickland or his Party, and that was bare-faced political interference which justified postponement of the Maltese Parliamentary elections.

"No!" rejoined the Vatican's White Book last week: The clergy never urged the people to deny their vote to Lord Strickland's or any other party, but the flock were warned not to vote for men whose attitude toward religion has been harmful in the past and may again be so in the future. Far from meddling in politics the Catholic Church was defending religion.

"Even a superficial examination of the facts," says the Vatican White Book, "is sufficient to show Lord Strickland's Erastian mentality and policy."

Informed by a Daily Mail reporter in London that he had been called an "Erasdan," Baron Strickland (who hurried to England a fortnight ago to consult with Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald) appeared grossly insulted. Being a Catholic himself, he knows what it means to be called an "Erastian."*

"As to criticism of my 'Erastian mentality,' " said he, "I certainly admit no supremacy of the Church in any save religious matters. You may call me by what name you like. The Maltese situation is not merely a religious one. It goes far deeper than that. It is an international one."

As a result of the Maltese friction Great Britain's diplomatic Minister at the Holy See was withdrawn. Deadlock was complete. Replying to a question in the House of Commons last week, Scotch Presbyterian Prime Minister MacDonald said: "We are perfectly prepared, so far as the Government's relations with the Vatican are concerned, to leave the matter where it is."

*More cautious than many of these priests, the Archbishops of Malta and Gozo declared in their joint pastoral letter (TIME, June 16) that it would be a "grave sin" and the Vatican's White Book says that priests who exceeded this limit have been "recalled."

*Thomas Erastus, German-Swiss 16th century physician and theologian, held doctrines which are variously interpreted, but always by the Catholic Church to the effect that he advocated supremacy of the State in ecclesiastical affairs. Lay commentators have contended that the "affairs" in which he advocated supremacy of the State were not primarily "ecclesiastical" but political, including as they did the infliction of "pains and penalties." Erastus further flatly differed from the Church by denying that excommunication is a Divine ordinance, and this of course, although not applicable to the present Maltese controversy, is sufficient to make "Erastian" as odious a term on Catholic lips as is "Papist" in such arch-Protestant communities as Northern Ireland.

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