[3] The first public function was held at the new premises by the friars on Saturday, 14 November 1896, with the chanting of the Salve Regina.

Mass was first celebrated the next day, on November 15, by Fr Carmel of the Child Jesus, the first Vicar Provincial of the Semi-Province, who then proceeded to bless the new premises.

An adjacent grotto, depicting the events of Our Lady of Lourdes, was sponsored by the Marquise Anna Bugeja, with statues of the Holy Virgin and Bernadette ordered from Paris.

The new church is a large, modernist rotunda of reinforced concrete and a corrugated roof, built to designs of the architect Giorgio Pacini.

[2][4] The Church of St. Alphonse is currently used as a meeting hall, and the building is listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands.