Religion in Malta, from the catacombs to the festa

In Malta, religion isn’t a line on a fact sheet, it’s something you see as you walk around. To my eye the church is the building that rules every village, the calendar is marked by saints’ days, and summer nights smell of festa gunpowder. Coming from Britain, the intensity may surprise you, because faith here is public, loud and part of the social calendar in a way it rarely is at home.

A Catholic country, by law too

The Maltese government gives the country’s religion in two words, ‘Roman Catholic’. Spain’s foreign ministry goes further, explaining that Catholicism is the state religion and that 82.6% of the population declared themselves Catholic in the 2021 census. Even the Archbishop has his own flag, yellow and white stripes, listed by the government among the official flags. That hasn’t stopped same-sex marriage being legal, as I explain in gay Malta.

You feel it in the calendar. Of the year’s fourteen public holidays, seven are religious, from St Paul’s Shipwreck on 10 February to Christmas. And 8 September, Our Lady of Victories, blends faith and history, since Heritage Malta ties it to the end of the Great Siege in 1565 and the announcement of Italy’s surrender in 1943. The full list, and what it means for museums and shops, is in Malta public holidays.

St Paul and the first Christians

Malta’s religious story begins, according to the tradition the tourist board relates, with a shipwreck. St Paul is said to have landed on the island in AD 60, and Heritage Malta tells how Publius, the island’s chief official, welcomed him at San Pawl Milqi in Burmarrad. What followed is well documented. St Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat are, according to Heritage Malta, the earliest and largest archaeological evidence of Christianity in Malta, and were in use until the seventh and eighth centuries. I cover them all in the catacombs of Malta.

Churches worth visiting

The Order of St John brought the great religious architecture. St John’s Co-Cathedral, completed in 1577, is the church I’d put first on any trip, gilded throughout and home to the two Caravaggios in the Oratory. It charges €15 and closes to sightseers on Sundays. Mosta Rotunda has a dome 39.6 m across inside and a replica of the bomb that pierced it in 1942 and never went off. On Gozo there’s the Xewkija Rotunda, consecrated in 1978, and the Ta’ Pinu shrine, built between 1920 and 1932 and a minor basilica since 1935.

My full selection, with opening times and prices, is in churches in Malta.

The festa, faith on the street

If anything explains religion in Malta better than a church, it’s a festa. The tourist board describes the season as a long series of extended weekends from late May well into September, when each parish celebrates its saint for three days or more. There’s a procession with the statue, band marches, decorated streets, papier-mâché figures, stalls selling Maltese nougat and, to finish, fireworks. On Gozo the ministry publishes the full 2026 order; on the island of Malta you’ll need each parish’s website. I go into detail in Malta village feasts.

What visitors should know

This is where people slip up. Churches open to visitors are also working places of worship, and that has consequences. Mosta parish warns that on some days the Rotunda closes for services. St John’s holds early Mass every day and on Sundays at 7:45, 9:30, 11:30 and 17:45, and, to protect the tombstones on the floor, the foundation staggers entry or caps numbers. On the beach, Spain’s foreign ministry points out that nudity and topless bathing aren’t allowed. None of this makes the trip harder, but it’s worth bearing in mind when you plan your day.

Ta’ Pinu, the shrine of papal visits

If I had to pick one place to understand Maltese devotion, it would be Ta’ Pinu on Gozo. According to the Gozo tourist board, in 1575 the apostolic visitor Pietro Duzina ordered the old chapel pulled down, and in 1858 it took the name of Pinu Gauci, the local man who paid for its restoration. In 1883 a village woman, Karmni Grima, said she heard the voice of the Virgin, and devotion grew until the present basilica went up between 1920 and 1932. John Paul II visited in 1990 and Pope Francis in 2022, bringing a golden rose, as Benedict XVI had in 2010. The full story is in Ta’ Pinu Basilica.