The first comprehensive journalistic account
of the entire Knights of Malta mess
April 27, 2017
It is lengthy, but well worth the read, so here is the link:
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/3174-the-plight-of-the-knights-of-malta-900-year-old-religious-order-mired-in-financial-scandal-and-vatican-intrigue?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRemnantNewspaper-RemnantArticles+%28The+Remnant+Newspaper+-+Remnant+Articles%29
A sordid and ugly picture of the German Knights and their drive for power; the questionable role of Vatican officials in more-
than-shady funding solicited by the Germans, and the officials' subsequent support for the German Knights, with Bergoglio's full
backing; and Vatican machinations against Fra Matthew Festing who did rightfully defy a papal order banning him from coming
to Rome for the election of a new Grand Master...
Some of these issues are well-crystallized in the ff analysis at CATHOLIC HERALD...
Why are emotions running high
in the Order of Malta election?
The reformist German party want sweeping changes.
But can they win over the voters?
by Dan Hitchens
April 27, 2017
Elections always provoke excitement, but in the run-up to the Order of Malta’s leadership vote this weekend, something more can be detected: anguish, anxiety, even a distinct note of panic.
The 60 voters – most of them professed knights, who take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience – are being intensely lobbied. Members are sending emails to the voters, asking them to save the order from “corruption and destruction”. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has asked to see 15 of the voters this evening.
To simplify things hugely, the contest is about whether a German-led reform party will get what they want. Normally, the Grand Master is elected for life; but the Germans want to elect an interim leader, who can reform the Constitution. Johannes Lobkowicz, whose brother Erich heads the German Association, has proposed sweeping changes.
At the moment, several senior positions, including Grand Master, can only be filled by professed knights.
This “link” between religious vows and holding office, Lobkowicz writes, “must be deleted.” Meanwhile, Albrecht von Boeselager, the de facto leader of the German party, says he wants new rules which “limit the autonomy of the Grand Master”.
The Germans say these reforms avoid fiascos like what happened last December. Boeselager faced allegations, which he denied, about his previous job in charge of Malteser International (MI), the order’s humanitarian arm. Fra’ Matthew Festing, the Grand Master, asked for his resignation; Boeselager refused, precipitating an internal crisis. Eventually, Fra’ Festing resigned at the Pope’s request – hence the need for an election.
Critics of the German party say that the professed knights are at the heart of the order’s identity, and that the proposed reforms would secularise the order.
They point to the crisis over Boeselager and MI. For years, MI had been giving out contraceptives, some of them with the potential to cause abortions. The charitable view is that the leadership had no idea: a big aid organisation has many moving parts, and it’s hard for the Grand Hospitaller in Cologne to know what is being given out at a clinic in Rangoon.
What is certain, however, is that the leadership knew by 2013. And as the Catholic Herald revealed yesterday, their response raises a few questions. For one thing,
they did not tell the Grand Master or the Sovereign Council – who found out by accident a year later.
In 2013, Boeselager asked his MI colleagues to keep the matter internal, as “this is an extremely sensitive matter that, without an appropriate background and know-how, could lead to serious misunderstandings”. Boeselager’s allies vehemently insist that he wasn’t proposing to conceal the problem. But the question remains:
why didn’t he tell his superiors about a crisis that he evidently considered important?
Yet more strangely, MI’s response was to issue new ethical guidelines which were – as a 2016 internal report politely put it – “inconsistent with the Church’s teaching”.
Then there is the money. The labyrinthine story of trusts, donations, frozen accounts, legal cases, allegations, investigative journalism and legal threats has been summarised by Edward Pentin. The evidence is difficult to weigh up for those of us who do not know much about the world of finance.
Someone who does is George Hope, a member of the order (he’s a Knight of Honour and Devotion) who spent a decade on HSBC’s internal audit team as a bank inspector. Hope says: “While at HSBC, I gained considerable in-depth knowledge of banking and bank fraud. To put it bluntly,
both my experience and my instinct tell me that there has been serious financial irregularity within the order.”
Hope thinks the problems extend well beyond the recent allegations, and could have severe repercussions further down the line. The solution, he believes, is to re-elect Fra’ Matthew Festing – even if only for a year – with a mandate to clean up the order’s finances.
Hope is not the only knight who wants Fra’ Festing re-elected. While writing a profile of the former Grand Master, I spoke to several people who have worked for him, and found that he inspires a remarkable degree of loyalty. Fra’ Festing was asked to step down by Pope Francis earlier this year. But Francis also gave the green light for him to be re-elected. Members of the order who value Fra’ Festing’s legacy – above all, his emphasis on the spiritual identity of the order, reinforced by the professed knights – could choose to elect him, or someone of a similar school of thought.
However, the German party have tactical advantages. Boeselager has personally written to the voters, asking them to elect an interim leader (who could initiate the German-backed reforms). Moreover, the Vatican appears to back the German party.
Since the Order of Malta is a sovereign entity, it’s curious for the Vatican to be so closely involved, and officials seem unsure about how to act. The Vatican delegate tried to ban Fra’ Festing from Rome, a ban which has now been 'lifted'.
[Yeah! After the fact! - after Fra' Festing had landed in Rome to take part in the elections, despite the earlier ban!] But the papal delegate is heavily involved in preparations for the vote, and may choose to exert his influence over the knights.
Gary Lineker once explained the rules of football as “22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the Germans win.” Threescore knights in Rome will now decide whether a similar law of nature applies to the Order of Malta.
Sandro Magister had an earlir blogpost which underscores the reigning pope's unhealthy and unwarranted involvement in the internal affairs of an Order that has the same status as the Vatican as a sovereign state in international law.
The Knights of Malta have an extra
[and extraneous] Grand Elector in the Pope
April 25, 2017
To some, the interdict brought down by the pope on the former Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra' Matthew Festing, seemed to be going too far. To others, not far enough.
The fact is that for 7pm on Wednesdey, April 26, on the eve of his journey to Egypt, Francis has convened at Casa Santa Marta a hefty representation of the members of the Order who have come to Rome to appoint their new superior general. To be exact, the following fifteen:
- Fra' Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein, Grand Commander and Lieutenant ad interim;
- Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, Grand Chancellor;
- Dominique de La Rochefoucauld-Montbel, Grand Hospitaller;
- János Esterházy de Galántha, Receiver of the Common Treasure;
- Erich Prinz von Lobkowicz, President of the Association of German Knights;
- Marwan Sehnaoui, President of the Association of Lebanese Knights;
- Jaime Churruca y Azlor de Aragón, President of the Association of Spanish Knights;
- Thierry de Beaumont-Beynac, President of the Association of French Knights;
- Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre Del Tempio di Sanguinetto, Grand Prior of Rome;
- Fra’ Luigi Naselli di Gela, Grand Prior of Naples and Sicily;
- Clemente Riva di Sanseverino, Grand Prior Delegate for eastern Emilia and Romagna;
- Fra’ Ian Scott, Grand Prior of England;
- Fra’ Emmanuel Rousseau, member of the Sovereign Council;
- Jack E. Pohrer, of the American Association;
- Mons. Fra’ Giovanni Scarabelli, Professed Conventual Chaplain.
Properly speaking, the one who called the fifteen to the Vatican was substitute secretary of state Angelo Becciu, who since February 4 has been the pope’s special delegate to the order, endowed with full powers. But in addition to him, it has been announced that Francis will meet with them too.
The reason adopted in justification of the meeting is the one already indicated in the letter from Becciu to the members of the Order of last April 15:
so that the “event,” meaning the election of the new superior general, “may take place in an atmosphere of peace and of restored harmony.” [Yeah, right! The Vatican seeks to impose 'harmony' in the exercise of a sovereign constitutional function by another state - the election of that state's leader no less - in whose internal affairs it has no right whatsoever to butt into! How would it be if the Grand Master of the Order of Malta butted into the Sistine Chapel during a Conclave to 'interfere' in some way with the election of a Pope?]
And this is the same reason with which Becciu, in the name of the pope, justified the obligation imposed on Festing not to take part in the upcoming conclave of the Order, which will open on April 29, and not even to be present in Rome during the days of the event.
This unheard-of prohibition of the former Grand Master - already forced to resign by the pope in person on January 24 - had raised understandable dismay among the Knights of Malta. To some it had seemed an unprecedented abuse of power. To others, even among Festing’s opponents, an excessive action that therefore required a further act of correction and pacification on the part of the Vatican authorities.
And this is precisely what is said to be the aim of the meeting with the pope on April 27. Except that, once again, this convocation has rekindled the conflicts among the Knights, instead of appeasing them. Not a few judge it as a mistimed and miscalibrated step, an undue form of pressure - exercised by none other than the pope - aimed at influencing the imminent election of Festing’s successor.
An election that will probably not result in the appointment of a new Grand Master, but only of a lieutenant ad interim, who could be the one who is already covering that role temporarily, the eighty-year-old Grand Commander Fra’ Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein, or the current Grand Prior of Rome, Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre Del Tempio di Sanguinetto.
The lieutenant would remain in office for a year, during which time the statutes should be reformed.
According to the current constitutions of the order, in fact, the Grand Master can be elected only from among the professed members, with the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, a prerequisite that today is met by only 55 members of the order, out of 13,000.
Moreover, the Grand Master should have inherited noble blood from all four of his grandparents, which would reduce the list of the electable to only 12 Knights, one of whom is 97 years old.
The reform of the statutes should strike down these and other limitations.
But as is known, the conflict within the Order of Malta has much deeper and more serious causes. Not the least of which is the unresolved question of those mysterious 30 million Swiss francs that Settimo Cielo has covered.
POSTSCRIPT – Eighteen hours after this post was put online, Reuters and the Associated Press broke the news that former Grand Master of the Order of Malta Fra' Matthew Festing has decided all the same to go to Rome – where he landed on Wednesday, April 26 – to participate in the election of the new superior general, defying the veto of Pope Francis.
According to statute, the former Grand Master has the right to take part in the conclave of April 29, both by voting and by standing for re-election.
[Stick to it, Fra Festing, and stick it to 'em in the Vatican!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/04/2017 03:41]