Nazju Falzon

Blessed Nazju Falzon, known in English as Ignatius Falzon, was a Maltese Catholic cleric, doctor of law, and catechist of the nineteenth century. He was born in Valletta on 1 July 1813 into a prominent legal family; his father, Francesco Giuseppe Falzon, was a judge. He grew up in a devout household, and three of his brothers became priests. Falzon studied at the University of Malta and, while still a young man, obtained doctorates in both civil and canon law. He received clerical tonsure and the minor orders and thus became a cleric, but he never proceeded to major orders. Judging himself unworthy of the priesthood, he remained for the rest of his life a cleric in minor orders: he never celebrated Mass as a priest, yet he lived a thoroughly ecclesiastical and apostolic life in the service of the Church.

Although qualified in the law, Falzon did not pursue a career in the courts. His principal work was catechesis. Under British colonial rule Malta hosted a large garrison and a naval presence, and Falzon is especially remembered for instructing British soldiers and sailors, many of them Protestants or poorly formed in the Catholic faith. He taught them in English, prepared candidates for the sacraments, and offered spiritual counsel. He also catechized Maltese children and the poor. He belonged to the Secular Franciscan Order (the Third Order of Saint Francis) and cultivated a Franciscan simplicity of life despite his education and family standing. Contemporary memory of him stresses regular prayer, devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, long hours in church, and the combination of legal learning with pastoral charity toward foreigners and servicemen as well as toward his own people.

Falzon died in Valletta on 1 July 1865, the fifty-second anniversary of his birth. He was buried in the family vault in the Jesuit Church (the Church of the Circumcision) in Valletta. A local reputation for holiness attached to his memory. After the usual diocesan and Roman processes, Pope John Paul II beatified him on 9 May 2001 during an apostolic visit to Malta, at a ceremony in Floriana that also honoured George Preca (later canonized) and Maria Adeodata Pisani. Falzon’s liturgical memorial is kept on 1 July. He has not been canonized and remains a Blessed of the Catholic Church.

His life is often cited as an example of holiness exercised without priestly ordination, particularly in the work of catechesis and in pastoral care for soldiers, sailors, and others on the margins of Maltese Catholic society in the British colonial period. He is one of the relatively few Maltese figures of the nineteenth century to have been raised to the honours of the altar, and his beatification formed part of a wider recognition of modern Maltese Catholic witness during John Paul II’s visit to the islands.