Power Struggle in New Knights or Malta

Grand Chancellor of Boeselager and Pope Francis want to give the Order of Malta a new constitution, but they do not want the same.

Will there be a showdown in the Sovereign Order of Malta between the Special Representative of the Pope, Cardinal Silvano Tomasi and Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager, who does not want to accept the changes to the constitutions of the Order prepared by the Tomasi Commission? At the end of February, Pope Francis will intervene directly and bring about a decision, as he himself announced.

"I will not get rid of the spirits I called," Goethe has the sorcerer's apprentice say. Grand Chancellor Boeselager seems to be in a comparable situation. In December 2016, he called on the Holy See to help him assert himself against the then Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra Matthew Festing. With Pope Francis behind him, this also succeeded. It was not Boeselager who had to vacate his chair as head of government of the Order of Malta, but Fra Festing that of the Grand Master. Last November 12, Fra Festing, who was elected as the 79th Grand Master for life, passed away.

More than five years have passed since those dramatic moments and Boeselager is once again standing with his back to the wall, only with the difference that it is now the Holy See to which the Grand Chancellor had opened the gates of the Order at that time, which drives him into a corner.

The Showdown in the Order of Malta could be imminent. At the end of February, if it stays that way, there will be a meeting with all those involved in a conflict that threatens to tear apart one of the oldest institutions of civilization. The Order of Malta will celebrate its thousandth anniversary in a few years' time.

The meeting is to take place in the presence of Pope Francis. The Pope is more determined than ever, it is said, to intervene personally to settle the disputes over the reform of the Order's constitution once and for all. However, the matter is not that simple. The Holy See, called by Boeselager in 2016, rushed to this friend's aid. But now that Francis and his followers were in the Order of Malta, the weights began to shift, and yesterday's friend is no longer necessarily today's friend. New "friends" now have a say in the Order, who are closer to Francis than Boeselager.

Yesterday's friend ...

Last October 25, Francis wrote a letter to Cardinal Silvano Tomasi in which he assured his special representatives of full papal support. The Vatican professional diplomat, who was a permanent observer of the Holy See at the UN and the WHO in Geneva until 2016, is said to have been on the verge of losing face in recent months due to Boeselager's resistance despite his diplomatic experience.

When Grand Master Festing confronted his Grand Chancellor about his activities, everything seemed to be lost for the German Baron. But his good contacts with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and the then substitute in the Vatican Secretariat of State, Msgr. Angelo Becciu, paid off. Boeselager achieved what he wanted: not only did he get back his office as Grand Chancellor, but Pope Francis also cleared his opponent, Grand Master Festing, out of the way for him. Boeselager appeared to be the new lord of the Order of Malta in February 2017.

Under Becciu, who was appointed by Francis as the first special envoy, the relationship also went quite well. But Becciu crashed in 2020 over the purchase of luxury real estate in London. Msgr. Silvano Tomasi took his place as Special Representative to the Order of Malta. In 2017, the Pope had appointed the diplomat as delegate secretary of the newly established, but rather ominous, Dicastery for the Integral Development of Man. A few weeks after his appointment as special envoy, Francis also created him a cardinal. Tomasi is not Boeselager's man, but the Pope

Tomasi intervened much more intensively in the new version of the religious constitutions and himself chaired the commission, which had to prepare a corresponding draft. Grand Chancellor Boeselager is largely powerless against the cardinal. Not only because Tomasi is the Pope's special envoy, but also because Tomasi was a member of the five-member commission of inquiry that Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin set up in December 2016 to investigate Grand Master Festing's accusations against Boeselager. This commission attested to the German Baron's guiltlessness in no time at all. At the end of January 2017, Francis also took the report as an opportunity to demand the resignation of the Grand Master. A scandal from which the Order has not yet recovered internally.

In other words, Tomasi rescued Boeselager from the Bredouille. Exactly he, to whom the Grand Chancellor owes a lot, is now sitting with his neck in a sling. Tomasi, however, is much more interwoven in the matter, not only as today's special representative and as a member of the then commission of inquiry. Tomasi is also associated with the Caritas Pro Vitae Gradu Charitable Trust (CPVG), where 30 million Swiss francs are parked, which are said to have been donated to the Order, but whose provenance Grand Master Festing doubted. This was one of the points of contention that led to Boeselager's dismissal as Grand Chancellor at the beginning of December 2016. And it was the reason why Grand Master Festing accused the Vatican Commission of Inquiry of bias when he learned of its establishment. However, the Vatican was not interested in these "details". Or were they even very interested?

The booklet of action

In the meantime, Boeselager had to realize that Cardinal Tomasi, who does not belong to the Order, took the reins of action out of his hands. In the course of the elaboration of the draft for the new constitutions, the sparks flew repeatedly. Finally, Boeselager set up a kind of shadow commission to draw up its own draft for the order's reform. At the end of January, Boeselager assured in an internal letter that he did not want to convert the Order into an NGO. This accusation had already been made of him by Fra Festing, because of some cooperation with UN agencies, which the then Grand Master disapproved.

At the same time, Boeselager entrusted the chairman of the Lebanese Religious Association, Marwan Sehnaoui, with the chairmanship of the Shadow Commission and declared him the sole authorized communicator in connection with the order's reform. However, Cardinal Tomasi claims this right for himself and had expressly confirmed in Pope Francis' letter of 25 October 2021 as "sole spokesman for everything concerning relations between the Apostolic See and the Order".

Like Tomasi, Marwan Sehnaoui was not only a member of the Vatican Commission of Inquiry into the Rescue of Boeselager's Honour, but, like the two aforementioned, is also associated with the Swiss millions. Obviously, they are no longer completely friendly with each other. The fault line today runs between those who belong to the Order and those who do not belong to it.

The tug-of-war

The tug-of-war has continued since Tomasi was appointed special envoy. On January 29, "a representative group of the Order of Malta" was received by the Pope "together with the special envoy's working group," as Boeselager emphasized within the Order. In the daily bulletin of the Vatican Press Office, however, only one audience for Cardinal Tomasi and Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda was reported. With such subtleties, the Holy See communicates who is the contact person for it – and who is not.

Since then, the Grand Chancellor has had to row with what his powers give him, because he not only has to pursue his plans for the Order, but also has to defend himself against a new, powerful opponent, Cardinal Tomasi, who has the Vatican behind him. Boeselager is also not without controversy within the order. One part carries the fall of Grand Master Festing after him and waits only for an opportunity. In addition, there are widespread concerns that the Order should be converted into an NGO, although an NGO de luxe, since it is endowed with diplomatic immunity, but at least an NGO. However, this could not do justice to the Order's thousand-year-old legacy, certainly not to its charism.

Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit and jurist, rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University until 2010, already "visually" represents a serious blemish in the current process in the Order of Malta. Ghirlanda enjoys the absolute trust of Pope Francis and is used by him in delicate and important matters. Where Fr. Ghirlanda is deployed, an order or community is under provisional administration and a "process of renewal" supervised by the Holy See is imposed. In this sense, Ghirlanda was already in use with the Legionaries of Christ, with the Sodalitium Vitae Cristianae ... and now also with the Order of Malta. Within the Order, one tries to downplay this aspect, but really no Knight of the Order is comfortable. Ghirlanda's participation makes it clear that Pope Francis wants to have a say, that is, to decide, and thus applies what admonishing voices had already said at the beginning of 2017: Boeselager had sacrificed the sovereignty of the Order in order to save his post.

Pope Francis is not one voice among several that can be overheard or overruled in case of doubt. Boeselager has now become all too clear about this. He had to learn that Fr. Ghirlanda was acting as the spearhead of the Special Representative. The excellent lawyer is the author of the draft for the new constitutions prepared by the Tomasi Commission.

Centralization according to Santa Marta

The draft provides for a tight centralization in the life and management of the Order. This thinking corresponds to that of Francis, which he knows from the Jesuit order. However, it does not correspond to the essence of the Order of Malta. In the Order and also in the Vatican, some believe that Boeselager is weakening. Will the German baron seek a compromise, which could only be a submission in order to save for himself what can be saved?

Boeselager, who found such willing support in the Vatican Secretariat of State in December 2016, currently finds only closed doors there. At the audience on January 29, Francis had announced that he would intervene personally. He requested that all activities relating to the new constitutions be suspended until the end of February. Cardinal Tomasi's commission acquiesced to this, but the Sahnaoui Commission did not. On February 2, a meeting on the reform of the Order is said to have taken place in Rome under the chairmanship of Peter Szabadhegy, Boeselager's deputy in the Order's government and one of his confidants, without the papal special representative being informed.

The matter quickly became known and reported by those in Cardinal Tomasi who are interested in driving the wedge deeper.

Against this background, the Order is increasingly eagerly awaiting the date announced by Francis for the end of February, on which he himself wants to intervene. In the Order itself, in the various "tongues" and associations, regardless of whether they belong to the "German" or "English" camp, the desire is louder that the Order should decide its affairs sovereignly, i.e. independently and without interference from outside. But the spirits that have been called cannot be rid of.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: MiL

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.Com

AMDG