As an executive member of the Labour Party, the Archbishop’s interdiction could not have been more ill-timed for 28-year-old Joe Micallef Stafrace. Within six months, the young lawyer and aspiring politician was planning to marry his childhood sweetheart, Yvonne.

Dr Micallef Stafrace was determined to accede to his partner’s wish to tie the knot at the Rabat parish church, so he sought a private meeting with Mgr Gonzi in the hope of convincing him to change his mind. But his role as editor of the Labour bi-weekly Is-Sebħ would prove to be a major hurdle.

“I met Mgr Gonzi and he had all my writings laid out on his desk. He told me that if I ‘converted’ he would even have officiated the wedding ceremony himself at the Palace.

When I said I felt I had done no wrong, he insisted I could only get married in the sacristy, even denying me the right to get married in a chapel. I later learnt that a number of priests had urged my wife-to-be to leave me. Can you imagine that?”

The man who went on to become a Labour minister admitted his wedding ceremony was humiliating, as a group of Catholic youths chanted politically-loaded hymns outside the Church and passed snide remarks, questioning why such a beautiful bride was marrying a Labour executive member. “Despite all this, I still wanted a Church wedding. When Yvonne was asked whether she’d take me as her husband she yelled out ‘yes’, her voice resounding well beyond the thick walls of the sacristy,” Dr Micallef Stafrace, now 78, recalls. Avid Church followers had singled him out for forming part of the executive and it was not uncommon to see people spitting at his feet or even crossing the road when Dr Micallef Stafrace was out.

But ironically, members of clergy lent their support. The lawyer resorted to two priests (both experts in biblical studies and Canon Law) who assured him that his position in the Labour Party did not violate his Christian beliefs. To this day, he is still touched by the behaviour of a “prominent” priest who once stopped him and offered an apology before moving on. Political adversaries also supported him. Dr Micallef Stafrace cites in particular magistrate John Formosa (a member of the Strickland Constitutional party) who acted as witness at his wedding, while (Nationalist heavyweight) Guido de Marco also took an “active part”.

So what, according to him, led to the infamous clash between the Labour Party and the Church?

“Both Mr Mintoff and Mgr Gonzi were two giants from Cottonera who were constantly at each other’s throats. There were tough words hurled from both sides, but they should not have been taken out of context.

“The Church enjoyed massive power at the time but I believed then and I still believe now in the separation of state and Church. I don’t accept that anyone should superimpose his conscience on me.”

While fully accepting former Archbishop Joseph Mercieca’s apology in 1999, Dr Micallef Stafrace describes the interdiction as a stain in Malta’s history which should never be repeated because the scars live on for generations.

“Some people who were children in the 1960s still nurture bitterness till this day. I know people who were asked when they confessed as children whether they bought Labour newspapers for their parents – and if so did not receive absolution.

“And why did the Church add more sorrow to the family of the mother (Labour executive member Liza Zammit) who died in a traffic accident in Msida and was subsequently buried in the unconsecrated part of the cemetery?”