25 years ago - The Sunday Times
Sunday, June 19, 1994
Bishops, PM deny excommunication threat
The Archbishop, Mgr Joseph Mercieca, and the Bishop of Gozo, Mgr Nikol Cauchi, have denied they had in some way threatened Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami with excommunication during talks between the Church and the State on changes to the marriage law.
The bishops made the denial in a letter sent by Archbishop Mercieca to the Prime Minister on Friday with reference to an allegation made by Professor Oliver Friggieri in an interview published in The Malta Independent on May 22.
In the letter Mgr Mercieca pointed out that in a reply published the following week, the Apostolic Nuncio, Mgr Pier Luigi Celata, made it clear that Prof. Friggieri’s allegation “is completely false and groundless: during these discussions neither I nor – as far as I can ascertain – any other ecclesiastical authority have ever threatened the Prime Minister or any other person with excommunication”.
But, Mgr Mercieca added in the letter, despite clear denial by the Nuncio, Prof. Friggieri stuck to his version as published on May 22.
“You know that what Prof. Friggieri is alleging, and specifically that during talks on the agreement on marriage the Church hierarchy had threatened you with excommunication, is absolutely untrue.
Half a century ago - Times of Malta
Thursday, June 19, 1969
Police requisition buses
The government made its first bid to bring back on the road yesterday morning – six days after their owners laid them up in their garages.
But this was too late to save the midday rush-hour crowds from another uncomfortable journey home in emergency transport.
The first buses, driven by policemen and with policemen acting as conductors, were at the termini by mid-afternoon.
Early in the morning, policemen with requisition orders couched in terms of Section 13 of the Traffic Regulations, called on bus owners and generally returned to the Independence Arena in Floriana with the owner’s bus.
There the buses were put in a fenced-in area, closed to everyone except policemen on duty while the owners debated this new development either in small groups near the Arena or in a larger body close to the headquarters of the General Transport Union at St Anne Street, Floriana. The police were ready for them. They took with them a team of mechanics who tested the buses and even put back missing parts from engines.
A few owner-drivers preferred to drive their own buses instead of letting the police do so. But they had changed their minds by mid-afternoon as the buses which left the Arena for the termini at 3.20pm were exclusively manned by police drivers and police ‘conductors’.