Updated | Dominican friar Mark Montebello threatened with defrocking after IVF comments

Updated with comment from the Curia

The prison rights activists and Dominican friar Mark Montebello has reportedly been told he would be defrocked if he didn’t follow orders from the Church to stop writing and expressing his views, following comments he made which criticised the Church’s strategy against the government’s proposed amendments to the IVF law.

It-Torca reported that the Montebello’s Sunday column in the Maltese language newspaper, for which he has been writing since 1993, was missing from today’s edition after the Church threatened to automatically deprive him of his ecclesiastical status if he disobeyed its orders.

It-Torca reported Montebello's regular column was "censored" from today's newspaper

In a column penned for the Times of Malta late last April, Fr Montebello had let known his views that the Church was “strategically depositing itself in its opposition to the proposed amendments”.

“Each and every time, repeatedly, the campaign strategy of the Church ended up giving the impression that it stood against minority rights. This time around, we are already witnessing the soaring of hysterics, the simplistic arguments, the scare tactics, the crusading, the apocalyptic scenarios and the banal catchphrases,” he had said.

Montebello, who is known for his outspoken views, had also told Labour’s TV station ONE that the Church was deploying itself against the interest of the minority when it came to its opposition to the IVF law changes.

Comment from the Curia

Asked by MaltaToday on the position of Archbishop Charles Scicluna on the matter, the Curia said that it "is not informed about what has been reported in It-Torca with regards to Fr Mark Montebello."

Attempts to contact the Maltese Dominican Province, the order of which Fr Montebello is part of, proved unsuccessful.