Pope Francis’ two-day visit to the tiny European country of Malta, a strongly Catholic island just south of Sicily, in April, 2022 put a spotlight on Malta’s complicated history and important contemporary concerns. Chief among these is the sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers from Africa and the Middle East, and criticism of how Malta has treated them.
As a scholar of Catholic history and ritual, I have studied the development of the church in several European countries, and the important role that the lives of people venerated as saints have played in the way Catholics address contemporary issues.
