The Jesuit Order and their Knights of Malta

[Sabrewolf]

Knights of Malta’s CIA, FEMA and DHS collaborating nuclear threats against US

Posted: September 7, 2011

Why did Barack Hussein Obama make CIA director Leon Panetta the new Secretary of Defense? The CIA needs to be in control of the United States military in order to carry out more false flag attacks against the United States. By placing the U.S. military under CIA (Jesuit Knights of Malta) control they can intercept and deny U.S. military response to another false flag attack on U.S. soil. The U.S. government knows that the U.S. military was fooled once but won’t be fooled again. Obama put the U.S. military under CIA control.

The CIA is now planning for and coordinating another 9/11 against the United States. FEMA (under Jesuit Knights of Malta control) will control the response to those attacks and they will be in charge of coordinating the forced “evacuations” to internment camps. The DHS will become the new SS (Protection Squadron ordefense corps) under the imposed martial law.

Obama isn’t in control of the United States of America. He thinks he is. He is made to believe he is. He is a puppet president. Jesuit Knights of Malta Joe Biden is the real president of the United States. Obama was made president in order to create mass civil unrest in the United States post false flag attacks against the United States. Obama will be killed in the CIA false flag attacks against the United States. He will be the last elected president of the United States.

Killing Obama is essential to the Vatican plans for a New World Order with Vatican City as the only government in the World and the Catholic deity religion as the only Religion on Earth. Killing the black president of the United States will cause a Race War. Who can deny what will happen in the U.S. if Obama is killed. The1992 Los Angeles Riots should give you an idea of what will happen when the CIA kills Obama. The Jesuit Knights of Malta wants to deceive the people of the World. It is essential that Obama be scarified in the CIA attacks against the United States. It is key to detracting the American people and the World from the truth.

CIA Domestic Operations elements operating from their base under Denver International Airport are planning for and preparing for a number of false flag attacks against the United States. On August 23, 2001 the United States Air Force intercepted and thwarted the transfer of several suitcase size nukes. Several nukes were detonated underground during the U.S. Air Force recovery mission. The underground nuclear detonations caused two large earthquakes inland of the United States. The two major earthquakes that rocked the United States on August 23, 2011 (84 miles SW of Washington DC and 180 miles S of Denver Colorado.) occurred hundreds of miles away from any known fault lines. The seismograph for the Washington DC area earthquakes proves that the earthquake was caused by a massive and sudden underground detonation.

A self professed Jesuit has revealed that he and and the CIA are “collaborating” in mass attacks (plural meaning more than 1) against the United States before the 10th anniversary of the CIA false flag attack on September 11, 2001. This Jesuit confesses that ” INTEL confirmed … 7 (nukes). Two out of commission leaves 5 unaccounted for (meaning they still have 5 which the U.S. Air Force are still looking for). One is in NYC.” Probably brought in during FEMA’s Hurricane Irene mandatory evacuation. This Jesuit goes on to state, “I know that they are legit … The Threat is Real and ongoing.“ Who is this person? He is a graduate of the Ecumenical Doctor of Ministry program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and earned a Master of Divinity, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON. In other words a Catholic soldier from the Jesuit Knights of Malta. He was considered by the school authorities of the United States as a “child prodigy or genius” from which he was admitted into a special government program in which he demonstrated his innate ability to decipher and break codes. In other words he is CIA.

In an attempt to enlighten me as to what they are capable of doing they gave up this information:

“I have recorded testimony from a Mexican CT Agent who confirms that the Mexican outbreak of AH1N1 was in fact a biological terrorist attack upon Mexico.”

“Fact> The Virus is a 7-strand cocktail that involved the CIA exhuming bodies in 1997 from the permafrost in Alaska that died from the 1914 Spanish Swine Influenza.”

“Fact> The Swine Flu was created in a biological lab in Kansas, administered as an inoculation to soldiers that went to fight in WWI. Secondary and Tertiary Waves triggered the pandemic.”

“Fact> MITRE Corp out of San Diego with CIA, JASON Intelligence Committee and SMOM (Sovereign Military Order of Malta) developed it with the Approval of the WHO and Baxter (CEO is a Member of Skull & Bones).”

“Obama was infected intentionally to carry the Virus and spread it aside from deploying it in the Ventilation system of the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology when he was brought to Mexico to show off his new armored limo called “The Beast”.”

[scienceplease 2]

Where's the evidence that Joe Biden is a "Jesuit Knights of Malta"?

This doesn't make much sense IMHO.

[Sabrewolf]

[Mo Kingbird]

Interesting take on a lot of different topics here...if you are completely factually accurate then you come across as knowing way too much which means you have done a lot of homework, or have a lot of good intel from people who are part of the inner circles, or you are having a laugh at our expense and being a bit flirty with the pieces of the jigsaw. Beniefit of the doubt though.

Would be nice to know if the Breitbart stuff has any importance (although I am sure it is likely)...

If you are factually sound it would be nice to hear some more about this.

AB

[Sabrewolf]

What is the purpose of the Jesuit Order and their Knights of Malta?

1. End of sovereignty for the United States and other countries.

2. End of absolute property rights.

3. End of all gun rights.

4. To bring about The New World Order (world government).

5. The redistribution of wealth and jobs.

6. Calls for nations to trust the United Nations.

7. Total disarmament of all Liberal thinking people.

8. Promote the United Nations as the hope for peace.

9. Promote UNESCO, the re-educational and anti-cultural arm of the United Nations.

10. Promote interdependence.

12. Support the belief that the economic principle of traditional Christian or Catholic social doctrine is the economic principle of communism.

13. Above all, promote the Pope as the supreme leader of the World.

Their members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as “The Company”. (The CIA has always been referred to as “The Company”.) The Superior General of the Jesuits, is called the “Black Pope” – after his simple black vestments which represents the evil aspirations of the Catholic church. The Superior General is invested with extraordinary power over the members of the Society, even higher to the power given to a bishop over the people of a diocese.

The Black Pope today is Count Hans Kolvenbach. The Black Pope is commander of the Roman Catholic military order called the Knights of Malta. Why would the Catholic Church need a military? Isn’t the Catholic Church suppose to represent the Prince of Peace we all know as Jesus Christ? To answer that you need only to study prophecy. Prophecy reveals to us the dark side of the Catholic Church. It reveals to us who Lucifer is (The Pope) and who is in control of our World today !

The Jesuit Order is the most dangerous organization in the World today. It was originally created by the Vatican to counter reformation movements in Europe. In 1814 it took complete control of the Vatican.

Many have come to the conclusion that “the Jews run it all”. There is no denying that the corporate media is vastly dominated by Jewish business men, that Israel manipulates the American government through AIPAC, that the British Monarchy is intertwined with Jewish banking interests (Rothschild finance dynasty) and so on. In order for the true controllers to remain hidden, a patsy must be put in place. This is where Israel and Zionism fits into the picture.

The Jesuit Order is the head of the serpent. It controls the Military Order of Malta (Knights of Malta), The Knights of Columbus, The United Nations, the European Union, NATO (the modern day Holy War Crusaders), various central banks including the World Bank, the IMF and the Federal Reserve Bank, big corporations, secret services like the CIA, and numerous secret societies such as Freemasonary, The Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, Council on Foreign Relations and The Trilateral Commission.

What they don’t have yet but want is complete control over the United States. They have agents inside the United States who are now working to destroy and conquer the United States and its Liberal thinking people. The Jesuit Knights of Malta are planning on detonating several nukes in the United States.


Update: Count Hans Kolvenbach has not been Black Pope since 2008. The current Black Pope and Jesuit General since 2008 has been Adolfo Nicolas.

[Sabrewolf]

As I said before, there are connections within connections, which further prove that the events of 9/11 was in fact an inside job. "The elites" have a huge appetite for global domination and control of everyone.


Link





Link

[TonyGosling]

Blackwater: Knights of Malta in Iraq
From: AftermathNews

“The Knights of Malta are the militia of the Pope, and are sworn to total obedience by a blood oath which is taken extremely seriously and to the death. The Pope as the head of the Vatican is also the head of a foreign national power.”

-”Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences” by Albert G. Mackey 33rd degree Mason, published by the Masonic History Company, Chicago, New York, & London, 1925: (Volume One, pp. 392-95)

“The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in Crusades of the 11th centry – when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders. These memories return violently to mind with the discovery of links between the so-called security firms in Iraq such as Blackwater have historic links with the Order of Malta. You cannot exaggerate it. The Order of Malta is a hidden government or the most mysterious government in the world.”

- Jordanian MP Jamal Muhammad Abidat, from an editorial in the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Bayan entitled “The Knights of Malta – more than a conspiracy”. Abidat describes the role played by the Knights of Malta during the Crusades, and that the Order is playing a similar role in the Middle East today, citing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Blackwater is more than just a “private army”, much more than just another capitalist war-profiteering business operation. It is an army operating outside all laws, outside and above the US Constitution and yet is controlled by people within and outside our government whose allegiance is primarily to the foreign Vatican state. In other words, Blackwater is a religious army serving the Pope in Rome through the Order of Malta, which is itself considered under international law, as a sovereign entity with special diplomatic powers and privileges. Like Blackwater, the Order of Malta is “untouchable” because it is at the heart of the elite aristocracy.


Knight of Malta Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1744–1812)

The Knights of Malta is not merely a “charitable organization”. That’s just an elaborate front, as should become clear to you later. As the name Sovereign Military Order of Malta confirms, it is a military order based on the crusader Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem and is interwoven with Freemasonry. Most people have never even heard of SMOM, much less that it is a part of Freemasonry. But that is the way the aristocratic elite like it.

One of the symbols of the military orders of the Vatican, the masonic double-headed eagle emblazoned with the Maltese cross, signifies omnipotent royal dominion over both East and West. The orb signifies temporal dominion over the globe of Earth, and the scepter signifies control over the spiritual and religious impulses of humanity. This eagle symbol is used in the masonic rite of Memphis and Misraim, under which it reads, “Order Out of Chaos”, the Hegelian method of crisis creation. It is found on the seals of many European and Eurasian nation states including that of Russia, indicating direct Vatican control over those countries. It symbolizes the desire of a predatory elite with virtually unlimited resources, to totally dominate the entire world under a New World Order global government system using secrecy, manipulation, coercion and terror with the ends justifying the means.
http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=23716

[TonyGosling]

Caped crusaders: What really goes on at the Knights of Malta's secretive headquarters?

The ancient religious order is at the centre of every conspiracy theory going. Evgeny Lebedev is invited into their headquarters in Rome
EVGENY LEBEDEV Author Biography Saturday 29 March 2014

Most of the great conspiracy theories thrown up by history are so outlandish that it would seem impossible that anything could unite them. And yet there is a common link between the assassination of JFK, the Iraq War, and most of the conspiracies in between. It's not the reptilian bloodline of David Icke, nor the grubby Shylocks of ancient anti-Semitism. Haven't you heard? It's the Knights of Malta.

Leaked lists of their supposed membership read like a Who's Who of the global establishment: the first President George Bush; Rupert Murdoch; the head of the CIA; Tony Blair; Michael Bloomberg. All, apparently, signed-up representatives of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.

"The Knights are your CIA, your politicians, your lobbyist, your previous, present and future presidents," Google tells us. "They are the most powerful group known to man. They are the agents of the dark lord." Which is why, when I received an invitation to visit them at their headquarters in Rome, I booked a flight immediately.

The Order's home is on the Via Condotti, a short distance from the Spanish Steps. The building is part of the bequest it maintained after being forced from its stronghold on Malta by Napoleon at the end of the 18th century. Homeless and largely impoverished, the remaining knights wandered Europe for decades before settling on Italian shores and decamping to their old embassy, which has been the Order's HQ ever since.

All the trappings of a glorious theological order are here: a Renaissance palazzo; rooms holding oil portraits of kings, queens and emperors; a display case filled with ancient swords; and, in its own chapel, a site of such opulence that it is where King Juan Carlos of Spain was baptised by the future Pope Pius XII.

But if the internet fantasists were to gain access to the Order's inner sanctum, they would be gravely disappointed. There is the occasional aspect to get their pulses racing – not least the prevalent heraldry and ever-presentness of minions in their uniform of black tails and scarlet waistcoats – but this is no James Bond bunker. Rather, its tone is musty Oxbridge college, complete with wood-panelled rooms and bookcases filled with dusty tomes. There are even the obligatory pigeon-holes in the porter's lodge for letters.

In pictures: Inside the secretive headquarters of the Knights of Malta
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Power and prestige
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Power and prestige'Tradition is a good thing'Inner sanctumBookish art expert Distinctive emblem'More Rotary than Hellfire Club'Independent territory

The Knights are suitably donnish: cerebral, greying and rather rambling in nature. The minions were occupied by serving tea in china cups not – at least while I was there – administering kung-fu chops. The 21st-century incarnation of the Knights of Malta, I can report, is far more Rotary than Hellfire Club.

Grand Master Festing, in particular, is no Bishop Manuel Aringarosa, the power-crazed bishop who heads Opus Dei in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Born in Northumberland, the 63-year-old resembles the bookish art expert he was until elected head of the Order in 2008, having spent most of his professional life specialising in 17th-century European paintings at Sotheby's North of England office.

On the day I meet him, he's badly afflicted by a chill caught on a visit to the Order's aid projects in Naples, and it seems absurd to compare him to a crusader, as he himself cheerfully admits.

"If you reacted to everything you read you would go mad," he said. "Four or five years ago, there was an Al Jazeera programme with pictures of the Knights of Malta and what we do. One minute there is us looking after refugees, then the shot from El Cid, a lot of people on horses charging, and then a lot of American tanks charging along. It is something you just have to put up with."

'More Rotary than Hellfire Club': Grand Master Festing and Evgeny Lebedev chat over tea in the Palazzo Malta (Michele Palazzi) 'More Rotary than Hellfire Club': Grand Master Festing and Evgeny Lebedev chat over tea in the Palazzo Malta (Michele Palazzi)
The centuries spent in Malta gave the Knights not only their name, but their reputation for power and prestige. The world's oldest surviving chivalric order, it was initially founded in the 11th century by Amalfian merchants in Jerusalem as a monastic order to tend to Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. They evolved into a fearsome military machine and, after the fall of Jerusalem, at the Vatican's request, they turned Malta into a fortress against the Ottoman horde, most famously when it held out against the full might of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1565, and thereby helped 'save' Christian Europe.

That former territorial ownership means the Knights still have a rather unusual status. Although not a state like the Vatican, the building on Via Condotti, as well as the Order's other site in Rome, a priory on the Aventine hill with its own Piranesi chapel, is officially an independent territory, giving the Knights observer status at the United Nations in a similar manner to the Palestinians. They even have their own passports, postage stamps and, in many parts of the world, ambassadors, who are granted full diplomatic status.

Turning its back on its militaristic past, the Order has used this influence to find a new purpose, by going back to its hospitaller roots. The 118,500 members, employees and volunteers are now in the charity business, working or supporting aid projects in some 120 countries on an annual operating budget of more than £150million.

Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and most recently the Philippines, have all been recipients of its emergency relief. Most recently, it even started projects in Turkey, many of which support Syrian refugees, meaning that the eight-pointed Maltese Cross has returned to the modern incarnation of its old enemy.

Inner sanctum: Inside the Villa del Priorato di Malta Inner sanctum: Inside the Villa del Priorato di Malta (Michele Palazzi)
"We have this huge organisation, but what it does is try to give help where there is need," Festing tells me. "This involves reacting to all sorts of crises: refugee situations, or help for those who have been wounded in war or caught up in natural disasters. We are also trying to improve lives in places of great deprivation, particularly in central Africa and south-east Asia. There you find lack of water supplies; diseases that you thought were done away with, like tuberculosis. The other thing is in Europe, where you can have great disparities of income. You have help given to street children, old people. I like to think they are pretty useful things we do."

In the basement of their HQ is not a catacomb, but a hospital clinic; one of a network – often run with local partners – it has across the world. The one in Naples, for example, treated some 4,300 people last year.

"In Lebanon, we have a joint programme with the Shia," the Grand Master explains, "so [we] have Muslim ladies working in our clinic. In Egypt, we work closely with those treating leprosy. The work we are doing with the Syrians is with the Blue Crescent. How soon we can get into Syria, we don't know. At the moment it is impossible. It is in such a chaotic state.

"One of the things we always do is try to ensure our contact with these countries is very non-political. This is extremely important. For example, in Myanmar, when a cyclone hit four years ago, we had people there, but various other people, such as the Americans, were sent packing. We have seen the same elsewhere."

Not that this hospitaller life is without its trappings. The Grand Master is officially classed as a prince, and has the status of cardinal within the Catholic Church. The Order even has its own black robes that are worn for ceremonial occasions. "Tradition is a good thing," Festing says of such iconography, "provided, of course, you don't become enslaved to it."

Independent territory: Grand Master Festing shows Evgeny Lebedev around the Order's Piranesi chapel Independent territory: Grand Master Festing shows Evgeny Lebedev around the Order's Piranesi chapel (Michele Palazzi)
He regularly meets the Pope and was close to Benedict XVI who, despite his public persona, Festing says had a great sense of humour. "If you say something funny he laughs, and he can also make funny remarks about things. It's rather charming. But Benedict was certainly more formal than the new Holy Father.

"His approach is different because he's a different man. He's very much a pastoral bishop, which is where he comes from, and of course Pope Benedict is very much a theologian. Yet I think fundamentally they are very, very similar. I don't think we'll suddenly get a change of direction in some amazing way."

For centuries, Knights were required to take a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. Today, only obedience is required, and the Knights are no longer drawn solely from the ranks of Europe's nobility.

But the international-string-pulling, behind-the-scenes world order? Sadly not, I am told. "You will always have someone saying this or that," Festing says. "The weight of history does not impede us, but there is never a moment when somebody, particularly Arab journalists, are not saying, 'Ahh, the crusaders are back'. Occasionally we react and say we are not really crusaders any more, and so on. But we try to remain calm. We know our true function and we are pretty proud of that. About the rest of it, you try not to pay too much attention to it."

Evgeny Lebedev is the owner of the Independent titles and the London Evening Standard. Follow him on Twitter @mrevgenylebedev

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/caped-crusaders-what-re ally-goes-on-at-the-knights-of-maltas-secretive-headquarters-9217469.h tml

[outsider]

'I only have two to three years left to live': Pope Francis speaks for first time about his own death as he hints at 'nerve problems' and early retirement:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2728759/I-2-3-years-left-live- Pope-Francis-speaks-time-death.html

Well, if the old prophecy about the number of Popes is correct, Francis is supposed to be the last. Well, we've already got 'Wars and 'Rumours of Wars''. End-Times could be fast approaching!

(I've just corrected my original; I thought there was supposed to be one more).

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Pope sets up Commission to investigate dismissal of Knights of Malta chancellor
http://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/articles/view/20161222/local/pope-s ets-up-commission-to-investigate-dismissal-of-knights-of-malta.634592
Thursday, December 22, 2016, 15:22

Pope Francis today ordered an investigation into the ousting of the deputy head of the ancient order the Knights of Malta, who an Italian newspaper said was sacked for promoting the use of condoms in the developing world.

A Vatican statement said a five-member committee had been tasked with looking into the ousting of Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, whose official title was Grand Chancellor. The statement did not elaborate.

The ancient chivalric order, which today runs charities, hospitals and disaster relief in about 120 countries, said in its own statement this month that von Boeselager, a German, was dismissed by Grand Master Matthew Festing after twice refusing orders to step down.

It cited "grave problems" that had occurred under von Boeselager when he was in a previous position and said he had kept these issues hidden from the order's leaders when he was named Grand Chancellor.

The Rome newspaper Il Messaggero reported last Sunday that the group's leaders were upset that von Boeselager turned a blind eye to the distribution of condoms in facilities run by the order in the developing world.

The order, whose members swear allegiance to the pope, had no immediate comment on the report.

The Church does not allow the use of condoms as a means of birth control and says abstinence and monogamy in heterosexual marriage is the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.

A Vatican source said the investigating team would not concentrate on the issue of condoms but on the internal events that led to the sacking of von Boeselager.

The groups' chaplain is American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, an American whom the Pope demoted from a senior Vatican position in 2014 and who has been a leading conservative critic of the pontiff.

Von Boeselager is a member of the German nobility and was responsible for the foreign policy and diplomatic missions of the Knights of Malta, which was formed in the 11th century to provide protection and medical care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.

He has since been replaced by Maltese Fra John Edward Critien.

The Rome-based order has the status of a sovereign entity, with diplomatic relations with about 100 countries and has permanent observer status at the United Nations. It has 120,000 members, volunteers and professional staff operating across six continents.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

The unfinished tale of the Knights of Malta
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/13081/the-unfinished-tale-of-the -knights-of-malta

18 April 2018 | by Christopher Lamb
The unfinished tale of the Knights of Malta
Why the Order of Malta dispute is so revealing of tensions within the Church

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta is one of the oldest and most venerable institutions in the Catholic Church. Established in the eleventh century to care for pilgrims to the Holy Lands and to defend Christians during the Crusades, it has evolved into a major global humanitarian agency. In late 2016, a group of senior knights and their advisers became embroiled in an ugly public row with the Pope. It ended with Francis insisting on the resignation of the Grand Master and demanding a major reform of the order. A new leader, who will be given the task of pushing through these changes, is to be elected next month although the knights could renew the mandate of their current interim chief.

The dispute reveals many of the stresses and tensions inside the Church....




New revelations as Knights of Malta square up to choose new leader
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/8897/new-revelations-as-knights-of-mal ta-square-up-to-choose-new-leader

14 April 2018 | by Christopher Lamb in Rome
New revelations as Knights of Malta square up to choose new leader

New revelations as Knights of Malta square up to choose new leader
Did Cardinal Burke want the Knights of Malta to be a platform to promote his traditionalist vision of Catholicism?

New details have emerged about the public battle between Pope Francis and the Knights of Malta which shine a light on the ongoing struggle between reformers and traditionalists inside the Church.

A crisis in the order was sparked when Albrecht von Boeselager, the Grand Chancellor, was dismissed from his post by the knights' former Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, ostensibly because it was discovered that he had allowed condoms to be distributed as part of the order's humanitarian work.

But The Tablet can report that von Boeselager, later reinstated, was viewed as an obstacle to the vision that the order’s patron Cardinal Raymond Burke had for the knights, while the German Grand Chancellor’s reform-minded approach to the order’s governance clashed with that of Fra’ Matthew.

The former Grand Master has revealed he consulted closely with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, including its former Prefect Cardinal Gerhard Muller, before going ahead with the dismissal of von Boeselager as his Prime Minister-equivalent. “I didn’t do all this on my own bat,” Fra’ Matthew told The Tablet during a telephone call.

But as Fra’ Matthew was consulting Cardinal Burke and the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, the Pope wrote to the cardinal saying that while that condoms must not be distributed the internal disagreements in the order should be resolved through dialogue.

This was also reiterated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Holy See Secretary of State.

Sources inside the knights say the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were consulted about the case but never presented the order with any documentation nor did they meet with the Grand Chancellor.

Cardinal Muller is also recorded as visiting the order’s headquarters to receive an award from the knights during Fra’ Matthew’s time as Grand Master.
On the 2 and 3 May, members of the order from around the world will gather in Rome for a crucial conclave-style election to choose a new leader.

Whoever takes charge of the knights will be tasked with continuing the major reform of the order called for by the Pope.

Founded in the 11th century, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is both a Catholic religious order and a sovereign entity running a global charitable enterprise, and has diplomatic relations with more than 100 states.

Their reform efforts come after Fra’ Matthew, who resigned in January 2017, had incorrectly told von Boeselager that the Vatican wanted him dismissed, a move that sparked a Holy See investigation and what the knights describe as a “constitutional crisis”.

An official timeline of events has now been released by the order. But the former Grand Master also says he was sure that both Cardinal Burke – a leading light for conservative Catholics, who was the Vatican's representative to the order – and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith believed it was right to dismiss von Boeselager. Cardinal Burke is a prominent critic of the Pope’s moves to allow communion to divorced and remarried Catholics while Cardinal Muller found himself at odds with the direction of Francis’ papacy, which he has criticised for lacking theological rigour.

Sources inside the order have told The Tablet that Cardinal Burke wanted the knights – which has an extensive international network – to become a platform to promote his traditionalist vision of Catholicism. And when von Boeselager was sacked he told friends he had been labelled as a “a liberal Catholic unwilling to accept the teaching of the Church”.

When asked for a response to the claims, a spokesman said Cardinal Burke “declined to comment”.

“I think it [the condoms] was a pretext,” the Grand Chancellor told The Tablet during an interview at the Knights' headquarters in the Via dei Condotti, Rome. “The root cause was an increasing difference of opinions between the former Grand Master and the government of the order. It was less a difference in fundamental visions about the order but more on quite concrete matters of governance.”

The Grand Chancellor said that updating the governance of the order, including ensuring the Grand Master governs more collegially, especially on financial matters, is now part of the reform agenda for the knights.

“The general hope or goal is to make the order fit for the future. Over the last almost 1,000 years the order has been able to reform or adapt itself in the course of that history, because it remained faithful to its mission,” he says. “The mission is expressed in the double motto "tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum", to witness, nurture and defend the faith and to serve the needy. One of the characteristics of the order is that these two things are inseparable. We cannot go to the poor without Christ, but we cannot follow Christ without going to the poor.”

Fra’ Matthew, only the second Englishman to lead the knights, says he didn’t feel he was in dispute with anyone but admitted there were “issues with the hospitaller works of the order going back many years which I felt had not been handled correctly.”

Von Boeselager had been Grand Hospitaller of the order, its charitable arm, when the condom distribution was discovered but he has strenuously denied that he knowingly allowed it to happen.

“We followed the teaching of the Church. I have repeated this several times. The condom distribution was discovered by Malteser International after an internal audit,” he stressed. The distribution, he explained, had taken place in three places. Two were stopped immediately while the other, in northern Myanmar, plans were put in place to hand the project over to another agency, which took some time.

The distribution of contraceptives was only a small part of a €2 million healthcare programme in a deprived part of the world known where prostitution was rife. The use of contraceptives for the purpose of preventing the spread of diseases has been defended as morally permissible by Catholic theologians, and in a 2010 interview Benedict XVI argued it would be legitimate for a male prostitute to use a condom to prevent the spread of aids. Francis has also suggested contraceptives are justified to stop diseases.

The distribution of condoms was discovered first in 2013. Fra’ Matthew says he immediately alerted the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Von Boeselager says that the initial inquiry by the order exonerated him as did the 2017 Holy See investigation. He says the knights are now working with the National Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

The condoms issue, sources in the order say, was dragged up in order to remove von Boeselager from his post, while burnishing the credentials of an order now committed to a traditionalist, non-negotiable enforcing of rules.

Fra’ Matthew said that whether von Boeselager sanctioned the distribution of condoms or not, he was in charge of a department that had, and therefore should have considered his position.

“In an Englishman’s book you at least offer to resign,” he said. It was only after Cardinal Burke was appointed that the issue came back on the agenda, with a group called the Lepanto Institute submitting a report about condom distribution to him at the end of November 2016.

Von Boeselager was sacked in early December.

Fra’ Matthew told The Tablet that he started to look more closely into the matter during the “second half of 2016.” While stressing the cardinal did not seek to influence him, the former Grand Master told The Tablet he was “absolutely clear” that the cardinal wanted Fra' Matthew to sack von Boeselager.

“He [the cardinal] didn’t give the go ahead, but he thought that it should happen,” Fra’ Matthew explains. “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were well aware what was going on. I took the trouble to consult them. Because I wanted to make sure that whatever I did had the blessing of the Church.”

He explained there were a “series of meetings” with the Vatican’s congregation, including at least one with Cardinal Muller. There was also an occasion, Fra’ Matthew explained, when officials from the congregation came to the knight’s headquarters on the Via dei Condotti to discuss the case. Cardinal Burke, now “de facto suspended” as patron, is believed to have his own distinctive vision for his role in the order.

“The cardinal hoped the order would assist him in promoting his view of the Church, a traditionalist view. He had higher expectations regarding his role than it was in reality; and he wanted more influence and more power than the position entailed,” a source inside the knights told The Tablet.

“The cardinal wanted the order to provide him with an office and a base. He also wanted a group of traditionalist priests to become professed priests of the order, although this wish was not granted.”

Fra’ Matthew emphasised that the cardinal never asked him for any financial assistance or for an office, and did not accept that Burke was pushing any agenda. But he added: “We all know Cardinal Burke’s view on things. And when the Cardinal Patronus says things you accept it in obedience to the Holy Father.”

Other sources say as patron the cardinal started regularly accepting invitations from individual members of the order to celebrate Mass in the Old Rite. At the same time Henry Sire, living in the Via dei Condotti palace in order to write a history of the knights.

According to the book’s publicity it stems from Mr Sire’s four years living in Rome where “he became personally acquainted with many figures in the Vatican, including cardinals and curial officials.”

“The Dictator Pope”, published last year as an e-book and re-released in a print edition on 23 April, alleges that Pope Francis governs in an autocratic, dictatorial style, while describing Fra’ Matthew as an “out and out traditionalist, in doctrinal and liturgical terms” who was at “loggerheads” with the “highly efficient” German faction in the order, represented by von Boeselager.

While the order say the book’s account is “biased”, Fra’ Matthew said that on a “swift reading” of the first edition it seemed “relatively accurate”.

Mr Sire stressed to The Tablet that he did not start writing the book until after Fra' Matthew had stepped down. The former Grand Master offers a simple explanation as to why he stepped down in early 2017.

“I resigned because the Pope asked me to resign. A good Catholic does what he’s told by the Pope,” Fra’ Matthew says. He explains that, health permitting, he will cast his vote in the upcoming elecitons. Those will take place on Rome’s Aventine Hill in another of the order’s properties. The acting leader of the knights, Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, might be elected Grand Master or be asked to continue as the interim head for another year. The other option is that the knights choose someone else to lead them.

The Tablet will publish a more in-depth piece on reform inside the Order of Malta in the issue of 21 April.



Pic: A group of Knights of Malta chat on a terrace of the Order's Villa Magistrale (Villa del Priorato di Malta) on Rome's Aventine Hill before the election of the new lieutenant of the Grand Master. They elected a temporary leader during a period of reform after the last grand master was effectively ousted by Pope Francis. The new temporary leader is Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre with the title of lieutenant of the grand master. Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, born on 1944, succeeds Fra' Matthew Festing, 79th Grand Master, who resigned in January 2017. Fifty-six knights eligible to cast ballots had to choose a leader from a pool that, according to the order's rules, must have taken religious vows of poverty, obedience and chastity and hail from noble lineage. The dismissals of the order's grand master Fra' Matthew Festing (in January 2017) and grand chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager (in December 2016), over the order's involvement in the distribution of artificial contraceptives, has precipitated a serious rift with the Holy See. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a lay religious order headquartered in Rome dating back to the First Crusade. It has long defended the faith against persecution and been dedicated to helping care for the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, employing about 25,000 medical personnel and 80,000 volunteers worldwide. It is considered a sovereign subject under international law and has diplomatic relations with 106 countries. Photo by Eric