King Charles III’s Vatican visit in October: How Malta’s faith, tourism and history fit into the royal pilgrimage

King Charles III to visit Vatican in October: What it means for Malta’s historic ties

Valletta’s bells had barely finished tolling for Sunday mass when news broke that King Charles III will travel to the Vatican this October, his first papal audience since ascending the throne. In a country where 98 % of citizens identify as Catholic and where Prince Philip’s 1959 visit still lives in black-and-white photographs hanging behind bar-counter prickly-pear liqueur, the announcement reverberated like a festa firework with a double echo—one in Rome, one unmistakably in Malta.

The Palace in London confirmed that the King will meet Pope Francis on 10 October, following a state visit to Italy that includes a tour of earthquake-hit Emilia-Romagna. Yet inside Malta’s Auberge de Castille, diplomats were quicker to tweet than any UK press officer. “Another chapter in the 500-year Malta-England-Vatican triangle,” Foreign Minister Ian Borg posted within minutes, attaching a 1530 parchment in which Henry VIII—then still “Defender of the Faith”—appealed to the Knights in Malta for maritime support.

Local historians see more than ceremonial symmetry. “Charles’s mother came to Malta four times, but always as Queen; this is the first British monarch to greet a pope after losing a parent whose faith was questioned daily in the Reformation,” says Fr. Jimmy Xerri, who lectures at the University of Malta. “For Maltese Catholics, the optics matter: a crowned head bowing to the successor of Peter reminds us we are simultaneously Commonwealth citizens and Roman Catholics—identities we juggle each time a divorce bill or IVF law is debated.”

Coffee-shop pundits add a practical layer. October is high-season for English-language schools; roughly 7,000 teenage students from 28 countries will be resident in Sliema and St Julian’s when the King lands in Rome. “We’re already fielding requests from British tour operators who want to bolt on ‘Malta faith heritage’ weekends,” says Claire Bonello, CEO of the Malta Tourism Authority. “St Paul’s Shipwreck church, the Mdina cathedral, even the underground WWII shelters where GIs and Tommies prayed before D-Day—everything is being repackaged as a pre- or post-papal add-on.” Government statistics estimate an extra €2.3 million could trickle into the economy if even 5 % of October visitors extend their stay by two nights.

But not everyone is calculating in euros. In Żejtun, parish volunteers restoring a 17th-century lectern see the visit as moral reinforcement. “We’re losing craftsmen—no one learns wood-inlay anymore,” laments Marisa Camilleri, wiping dust from a mahogany angel that once adorned a Knights’ galley. “If the King and Pope speak about safeguarding Christian art, maybe our own ministries will stop cutting restoration budgets.” Her wish list: joint Anglo-Maltese-Vatican funding for digital archiving of parish silver, echoing the successful “Michelangelo digitisation” launched after the 2020 pandemic.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, hope Charles—long before he was King—will remember Malta in his climate conversation with Francis. “The two men co-authored papers on ocean plastics in 2017,” notes activist Cami Appelgren. “If they mention the Mediterranean, our fishermen could benefit from extended blue-fin-tuna quotas tied to sustainability benchmarks.” She plans to hand a letter to the British High Commission, asking Charles to raise the stranded sperm whale that washed up in Gozo last March, its stomach filled with car-dashboard fragments.

Back inside the Archbishop’s Curia, preparations are less speculative. A live-stream viewing of the papal audience will be organised in St John’s Co-Cathedral, followed by ecumenical vespers sung by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. Tickets will be free but must be applied for online—an intentional nod to younger believers who only encountered monarchy via Netflix’s The Crown.

Whether Maltese hearts will swell as they did in 1943 when George VI drove through bomb-ravaged Valletta remains to be seen. Yet one thing is certain: come 10 October, village band clubs will hoist the Union Jack alongside the yellow-white Vatican flag, and fireworks factories in Zebbug are already testing petards that burst red, white, gold—the colours of both the English and Papal coats of arms. In Malta, symbolism is never left to chance.