‘Overstepping the mark’: Is the Order of Malta in serious danger?
The First Class consists of the Knights of Justice or Professed Knights, as well as Professed Conventual Chaplains. The Knights of this class take the religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They are defined as religious but not required to live in the community. They also benefit from a dispensation of their vows of poverty, including the Profess recently consecrated by Cardinal Tomasi.
The Second Class is composed of Knights and Ladies in Obedience, who promise to obey their superiors and strive for Christian perfection in the spirit of order.
The Third Class includes lay members who take neither vows nor vows but are committed to living a fully Catholic life in accordance with the principles of the order.
First Class Knights only who descend from a family of four quarters of the nobility are eligible to be elected as the Grand Master, the religious superior and sovereign of the order. This provision means that less than 40 people in the order can be considered for the position.
The Grand Master oversees the order with the help of a body called the Sovereign Councilwhose members are elected for terms of five years by order General Chapter.
Members of the Sovereign Council include the influential figure of the Grand Chancellorwhich oversees the order’s 133 diplomatic missions, and the Grand Hospitallerresponsible for the order’s extensive humanitarian initiatives.
The order has three different types of national institutions spread around the world: six grand priories, six sub-priories, and 48 local associations.
Those do all the works, which have been flourishing over the years under the leadership of knights of the second and third Class, where all the professional talents are available. The first class includes less than 40 members, with a majority over 70 years of age. Whereas the second and third class amount to 13,500 Members.
Cardinal Tomasi intervened directly with the Grand Priory and nominated new members and heads of the Grand Priory, who are usually elected.
In a letter dated July 25, 2022, the Papal delegate said that the extraordinary situation of the governance of the priory had “come to an end,” and that the “current presence of professed knights with vows solemn” would allow them to “return to fully live the religious charism of the order.”
Tomasi also wrote that the Professed Knights, in several meetings, confirmed that they are “fully available” to undertake the commitment to lead the great priories.
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The papal delegate then continued and appointed the head and members of the Grand Priories of England, Rome, Naples and Sicily, Bohemia and Austria.
Cardinal Tomasi’s letter also requested that the new Grand Priors establish — by the end of September — their assembly to allow the elections.
The letter of the Papal delegate shows a strong will to bring forward the reforms as planned, mostly by him and his work team, since no agreement was reached on a draft with the elected bodies of the order.
Cardinal-designate Gianfranco Ghirlanda SJ has been working on the draft of the new constitution together with Tomasi. Pope Francis received the two in a private audience on June 11.
The Jesuit claims that the authority in the Order of Malta comes from the religious consecration. This idea is only valid if the order is seen primarily as a spiritual body. The emphasis on the religious character of the order can undoubtedly endanger its sovereignty, since it is controlled by the head of another state, that is, the Vatican City State. Therefore it greatly reduces the efficiency of its works on the ground.
The actions taken so far, both by the Pope and by Tomasi, show that Ghirlanda’s line has been taken into account a lot when it comes to revising the Constitution of the Order of Malta.