Order of Malta: Errant knights tilt at the power of the Pope

Order of Malta: Errant knights tilt at the power of the Pope 

12 January 2017 | by Christopher Lamb | Comments: 0 A row over the sacking and suspension of the Grand Chancellor of Catholicism’s most venerable chivalric order is ballooning into a full-scale battle with the Vatican
The sacking of a senior knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in a row about the distribution of condoms has created a major crisis inside Catholicism’s oldest and best-known chivalric  order. Its aristocratic members, whose leaders take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and are often seen processing in magnificent costumes, are now at each others’ throats.

But the dispute goes much deeper than a ferocious internal row among the Knights of Malta: it has laid bare the bitter divisions inside the Church between those supporting Pope Francis’ vision for a more flexible, compassionate Catholicism rooted in discernment and dialogue and their opponents, who are determined to return to a Church of unbending rules.


On the one hand we have the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Matthew Festing, and Cardinal Raymond Burke, the knights’ patron and prominent Francis critic: they are the driving force behind the sacking of the order’s Grand Chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, who is accused of overseeing the distribution of condoms in the order’s development programmes designed to help prevent the spread of HIV-Aids in Burma.

He was removed from his role, effectively the number three in the order, because of this breach with Catholic doctrine and, according to the German-born von Boeselager, because he was regarded as a “liberal Catholic” and “unwilling to accept the teaching of the Church”.

The Pope has made it clear that he opposes von Boeselager’s dismissal. The Vatican has insisted that it urged Festing to address the crisis in a spirit of dialogue. The Pope’s wishes have, however, been ignored. As a result, a papal commission has been set up to investigate the saga.

This commission is looking into the chain of events that reached a dramatic climax on 6 December, when the Grand Master, in the presence of the papal representative to the order, Cardinal Burke, asked von Boeselager to resign. After the respected German knight refused, Festing sacked him for breaching his vow of religious obedience and suspended him from the order.

According to von Boeselager, the Grand Master, who is the son of a former British Army field marshal and a former Sotheby’s representative in Northumberland, told him that the demand for his resignation was in accordance with the wishes of the Holy See: Cardinal Burke’s presence in the room with Festing backed this up.

But in a letter, leaked to The Tablet, the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, told Festing that his actions did not have Francis’ support: “I wish first of all to reiterate that these measures [the sacking and suspension of von Boeselager] must not be attributed to the will of the Pope or his directives,” Parolin wrote in a letter dated 21 December. “As I expressed to you in my letter of 12 December 2016: ‘as far as the use and diffusion of methods and means contrary to the moral law, His Holiness has asked for dialogue as the way to deal with, and resolve, eventual problems. But he has never spoken of sending someone away!’”

As patron of the order, Cardinal Burke’s job is to relay the wishes of the Pope to the knights; he has now admitted that in a letter on 1 December Francis did not request that von Boeselager be sacked.

The furious former Grand Chancellor says that the case against him is that while he was in charge of the order’s charitable work – which includes highly professional and much respected development programmes in support of vulnerable people in 120 countries throughout the world – three aid projects in Burma involved the distribution of condoms.

When von Boeselager discovered the condom distribution projects, he closed two of them immediately, while the third was ended later following an intervention from the Vatican’s doctrinal enforcement office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The order’s own internal commission into the affair reported in January of last year, and the matter appeared to have been closed with no action being taken against von Boeselager.

But then the United States-based conservative pressure group, the Lepanto Institute, which has close ties to Cardinal Burke, became involved. It conducted its own investigation into the affair, and submitted its findings to the cardinal patron at the end of November. A few weeks later, came von Boeselager’s abrupt removal.

The Knights of Malta date from the eleventh  century and form Catholicism’s oldest military “hospitaller” order, which is a sovereign entity operating a global charitable network. It maintains diplomatic relations across the world, and has observer status at the United Nations. As a result the Grand Master enjoys some of the trappings of power of a quasi-head of state, including the title of His Most Eminent Highness, living quarters in a grand Roman palace and a rank in the church equivalent to a cardinal.

The knights are also a lay religious order whose leadership – including Festing – make vows like those of other Religious, whose ultimate authority, like the members of other Catholic orders, is the Pope. The decision by Francis to look into the sacking of von Boeselager has sparked a furious reaction from some inside the order and from defenders of Cardinal Burke. They argue that the Vatican has no right to investigate the knights, as the order is a sovereign entity answerable only to the Grand Master and its constitution. Their argument is that because von Boeselager was involved in the distribution of condoms, his sacking was, as Cardinal Burke put it, “just”.

What these knights really resent is that the Pope – whom Festing, Burke and those close to them in the order see as a dangerous moderniser – is getting involved in the internal matters of the Order of Malta. Their sense of  outrage was clear in the extraordinary statement released by the Grand Master before Christmas, when he insisted that the sacking of von Boeselager was an internal matter and that the Secretariat of State had no business interfering. The ante was upped when von Boeselager’s replacement as Grand Chancellor, John Edward Critien, wrote a letter this month to fellow knights telling them they could not collaborate with the Vatican investigation because of its “judicial irrelevance”.

Critien’s argument was quickly shot down by the Vatican. The man appointed by the Pope to lead the investigation, the seasoned Vatican diplomat Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, told Critien that his claim was inaccurate, has deeply disturbed certain members of the order and is in direct contradiction with Francis’ wish to reach unity and reconciliation among the knights.

Archbishop Tomasi explained the sacking had taken place on the grounds of “refusal of obedience” as a Religious and therefore comes under the remit of the Vatican.

“The issue is not the sovereignty of the order,” Tomasi stressed in a letter leaked to The Tablet. “But the reasonable claim of questionable procedures and of lack of proven valid cause for the action taken as raised by the concerned party.”

He points out that von Boeselager was sacked for “refusal of obedience” and it now requires “religious superiors” to clarify the procedure. In the case of the knights’ religious life – as with all Religious – this authority lies with the Holy See, despite the protestations of sovereignty.

Insiders say the reasons behind von Boeselager’s dismissal are about more than simply a dispute over condoms. At its heart it is a clash between the progressive-minded knights, who support the their German colleague, and the more conservative Grand Master and his allies. Von Boeselager has vigorously protested his faithfulness to church teaching; he is now considering using the order’s internal legal system to defend his position, and he has enlisted the support of several other leading knights. It is a row that threatens to overshadow the order’s work in countries across the world, including Iraq and Syria, and many of the areas afflicted by the recent earthquakes in Italy.

For the Pope, the order had been a convenient ecclesial Siberia where Cardinal Burke could be dispatched into internal exile after his refusal to reform the marriage annulment process when he was in charge of the Apostolic Signatura, the equivalent of the Church’s supreme court. Cardinal Burke has continued to make life uncomfortable for the Pope with this latest row, at the same time as he has been threatening to correct Francis formally for being insufficiently tough on remarried divorcees.

When it comes to disputes and disagreements the Pope favours discussion, reconciliation and dialogue, and he prefers to avoid direct confrontation with opponents. This is also how he approaches those who fall short of moral perfection: Francis does not condemn but listens, accompanies and tries to discern a way forward. The Grand Master and Cardinal Burke prefer a more black-and-white approach: if the rules have been broken then the individual must go – no ifs, no buts.

The difficulty for Festing and for Burke is that ultimately they report to the Pope, however much they may disagree with him or dislike his approach. And by refusing to co-operate with the papal inquiry the order is putting itself in an isolated position.

While von Boesalager was sacked on the grounds of disobedience, Francis may now be forced to exert his authority in the matter, calling for obedience to the Bishop of Rome’s wishes, which appear to have been defied.

How will this all play out? The Pope and the Holy See would ideally like von Boeselager reinstated, but if this is refused Francis could appoint a special commissioner to oversee the order. This would seriously constrain Cardinal Burke and may force Festing’s resignation. More drastic measures would be to dispense the Grand Master from his religious vows (he must be a professed Religious to lead the knights) or to cut off diplomatic relations with the order.

The Pope has left himself options, and whatever he decides he will want to make clear that when it comes to rows like these, dialogue and discernment is better than throwing the rule book at those who have erred.