Former Knights of Malta head to defy Vatican order to skip successor’s election

The ousted grand master of the Catholic charity Knights of Malta will attend a meeting that could elect his successor, the group has said, in direct defiance of Pope Francis’s order for him to stay away.

A spokesperson for the Knights said Matthew Festing, who resigned on 24 January, had informed the group that he would come to the meeting this Saturday at its headquarters in Rome.

It was not clear whether he would stand for re-election, as some of his supporters have urged him to do. Ed Pentin of the National Catholic Register reported that insiders tell him Festing remains very popular within the Order.

On 15 April, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the Vatican’s deputy secretary of state who, at the Pope's instructions, is overseeing the order during this interim period, ordered Festing not to travel to Rome for the election.

“Your presence would reopen wounds only recently healed and would prevent the event taking place in an atmosphere of peace and regained harmony,” Becciu said in a letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters news agency from a Vatican source.

Becciu said he had "shared the decision with the Holy Father," and that Festing should skip his trip to Rome "as an act of obedience."

That process of electing a new grand master is expected to reach a milestone on Saturday, though the order’s leadership has recommended that the 56 knights eligible to cast ballots elect a temporary “lieutenant” to run the order for one year, rather than the life term of a grand master. That will give the order time to reform its constitutions to broaden the pool of eligible future grand masters. Currently, the rules limit the pool to “professed knights” — who take religious vows of poverty, obedience and chastity — who hail from noble lineage.

Festing tendered his resignation to the pope after a month-long, highly public spat with the Vatican over the group’s sovereignty.

The turmoil began in December when Festing, a Briton, fired Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, the German-born grand chancellor of the aristocratic order.

Festing and a conservative US cardinal, Raymond Leo Burke, the group’s chaplain and a frequent critic of the Pope, had accused Boeselager of violating church rules by turning a blind eye to the use of condoms in aid projects in the developing world when he was in a previous post.

Festing, who ordered members not to cooperate with a papal investigation of events surrounding Boeselager’s dismissal, lost his battle with the Vatican and became the first grand master in centuries to resign instead of ruling for life.

The Vatican concluded the condom issue was just an excuse by Festing and Burke to wield more power in the 970-year-old organisation, and Boselager was reinstated.

The Knights of Malta comprises 13,000 members, 80,000 volunteers and about 25,000 paid employees, mostly medical staff who run charities and development projects around the world.

The all-male top leaders are not clerics but take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Pope.

The Vatican wants this weekend’s vote to elect an interim leader to run the group for a year while its constitution is changed. But the group could also decide to elect a new grand master.