VALLETTA - The Roman Catholic Church's oldest bastion of faith in Europe, Malta, welcomes Pope John Paul next week for his second visit to the small Mediterranean island in 11 years.
The Pontiff's trip on May 8-9 will be part of a journey in which he will retrace the footsteps of the Apostle St Paul, a tour that will also take him to Greece and Syria.
The apostle arrived in Malta in 60 AD when the ship carrying him to Rome as a prisoner for trial was shipwrecked.
The account of the shipwreck is given in the Acts of the Apostles, making Malta one of the very few countries to be mentioned specifically in the Bible.
Christianity became, and has remained, a significant factor in the shaping of the island's troubled history.
The faith survived a 200-year occupation by Arabs until 1090. They drove the religion literally underground, as many catacombs today show.
In 1565, Malta, then governed by Knights of St John, withstood a three-month siege by the Turkish army, inflicting the first major setback in the western expansion of the Ottoman empire.
Two centuries later, in 1798, Napoleon drove the Knights from Malta with hardly a fight.
PRIESTS AS BATTLEFIELD COMMANDERS
But the Maltese rose in revolt a few months later after French troops started looting a church in the old city of Mdina.
Priests became battlefield commanders as the French contingent was besieged for two years in the walled city of Valletta with assistance from Admiral Nelson.
Nearly 200 years of British rule followed.
But the colonial government, wary of the influence of the Church on the population, courted its leaders.
During World War Two, Germany and Italy laid a naval and aerial siege on the British outpost. With food running out, military authorities asked farmers on the tiny island of Gozo, three miles to the north, to make their crops available.
They accepted only after the island's bishop, Michael Gonzi, intervened.
Gonzi was later knighted and made an honorary colonel in the British army. He also became archbishop and secured privileges for the Catholic Church in talks in London before Malta became independent in 1964.
DIVORCE STILL ILLEGAL
Such was Gonzi's tenacity and the Church's influence on local politics that civil marriage was not introduced in Malta until 1975.
To this day, nearly all weddings take place in church and Malta remains the only country in Europe where divorce is illegal.
Despite growing pressure for allowing divorce, political parties appear reluctant to take a stand about it. And both major political parties have flatly rejected any possibility of abortion being introduced to the island.
The Church, headed by soft-spoken Archbishop Joseph Mercieca, is now careful not to involve itself in politics, but it retains huge influence.
A third of Malta's secondary school students go to Church schools, hundreds of elderly people live in its homes and its radio station is the second most popular on the island.
A 1995 survey found that 67 percent of the population of 380,000 went to mass on Sunday. Non-church surveys have found the Church to be the most respected institution in Malta.
In 1990, during the first papal visit ever to Malta, Pope John Paul focused his speeches on the need for unity among Maltese, then deeply divided on all things political.
Political tensions have eased somewhat since, but storm clouds are gathering again over the issue of EU membership.
CHURCH NOT TAKING SIDES
The Nationalist government of Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami is half way through membership negotiations but the opposition Labour Party is strongly against joining the EU.
The Church has not taken sides.
Bishop Nikol Cauchi of Gozo said in January that "most of the clergy feels this issue presents them with a thorny dilemma, as there is a possibility that they will be labelled politically biased, whether they agree or disagree with EU membership."
During his first visit to Malta, the Pope made only one remark about Europe, and it has been pounced upon by the pro-EU lobby.
"As Europe prepares to enter a new period of its history," he said, "Malta is called to contribute to the spiritual unity of the Old Continent by offering her treasures of Christian faith and values. Europe needs Malta's faithful witness too."
This time round, the Pope may concentrate on the virtues of three Maltese he will beatify in an open air ceremony on May 9: Father George Preca, cleric Ignatius Falzon and Benedictine nun Maria Adeodata Pisani.
Preca, who died in 1962, is the best known, having founded a society of lay people to teach catechism to children. Falzon (1813-1865) is remembered for pastoral service among British servicemen in Malta while Pisani (1806-1855) lived an exemplary life as a cloistered nun.
The government has given civil servants a day off to enable them to attend the beatification ceremony and the Post Office plans to issue commemorative stamps.