Malta and the papacy : 1530-1798

Abstract

Malta has been a Christian and Catholic country since St. Paul was shipwrecked on its shores in 60 A.D. It has always been proud of its faith and a faithful follower of the Church as established by Christ. The various changes of government since its conversion to the Christian faith hardly made any change in the belief of its inhabitants, or in their loyalty to the Popes, to whom the Maltese have always looked up as the lawful heads of the Church. In this dissertation I am putting forward my studies of the relations between Malta and the Papacy during the time of the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in these Islands. I have chosen this period because it is perhaps the riches in the relations between the Papacy and the various jurisdictions in Malta. Unfortunately, as we shall see, these relations were very often an indispensable means to put down disputes between the Grandmasters of the Order and the bishops of the Island. For this reason, a great part of this dissertation has been alloted to the relations between the various bishops of Malta and the Popes of the period. This study is largely based on two major Maltese histories, namely Achille Ferris's Storia Ecclesiastica di Malta and Commendatore Gian Francesco Abela's Descrittione di Malta as published and extended by Count Giovanni Antonio Ciantar. Achille Ferris has been used more because it goes into much greater detail than Ciantar and is perhaps more objective. Abel and Ciantar freely lavished praises on our ancient bishops even if the latter did not always merit at least such abundant praises. Apart from these two books, Giacomo Bosio's Dell'Istoria della Sagra Religione di San Giovanni has been consulted for the history of the Order. This study is divided into sections, each dealing with the relations between the Papacy and a particular jurisdiction of the Island. A final short chapter deals with the relations between the Papacy and the Maltese people. The appendix at the end of this dissertation serves to give some important material not given in full or at such length in the dissertation itself.