Pope John Paul II visited Malta in May 1990, a stop that carried unusual weight given the island's role as a Cold War backchannel — Malta's socialist government under Dom Mintoff had maintained close ties with Libya and the Eastern Bloc, and the visit came just months after the Malta Summit of December 1989, where Bush and Gorbachev met aboard ships in Marsaxlokk Bay to informally signal the end of the Cold War.
Pope John Paul II visited Malta in May 1990, a stop that carried unusual weight given the island's role as a Cold War backchannel — Malta's socialist government under Dom Mintoff had maintained close ties with Libya and the Eastern Bloc, and the visit came just months after the Malta Summit of December 1989, where Bush and Gorbachev met aboard ships in Marsaxlokk Bay to informally signal the end of the Cold War.