[Catholic Caucus] In Malta German Is Spoken...

L'Espresso ^ | July 25, 2019 | Sandro Magister

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In Malta German Is Spoken. With Too Much Money That No One Knows Where It Came From And Where It’s Going

Published as received. The author is a prominent Knight of Malta, of the wing that supported the penultimate Grand Master of the Order, Fra’ Matthew Festing, overthrown in January of 2017 by his internal opponents, with the decisive backing of Pope Francis and of the Vatican secretariat of state.

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Dear Magister,

in the Order of Malta, an age-old hospitaller, military, and chivalric religious order, there is growing fear that it will not survive the subversive pressure of some of its German representatives, led by Albrecht von Boeselager [in the photo] - its current Grand Chancellor and previously the head of aid services when contraceptives were distributed -, with the full support of the Holy See.

To understand what is happening, it could be instructive to “follow the money.” The affair is rather complicated and it is not easy for everyone to disentangle the trusts and foundations in New Zealand, Liechtenstein, and Panama, with assets held in Switzerland. On the basis of documents, investigations, audits, and access to the books of the companies implicated, one can however simplify as follows.

It all starts with a donation in Switzerland that was frozen in 2013 by the criminal court of Geneva, on the petition of the beneficiaries, dissatisfied with its management.

Among the beneficiaries of the donation under seizure, which totaled 120 million Swiss francs, was none other than the Order of Malta.

In the course of 2013 and 2014, nonetheless, Boeselager and three other leading exponents of the Order - Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, a former Holy See observer at the United Nations in Geneva, Marc Odendall, a Franco-German financier, and Marwan Sehnaoui, president of the Knights of Malta in Lebanon - continued to maintain relations with the fiduciary of the trust, one Ariane Slinger, with the objective of obtaining those funds anyway, to be disposed of according to their discretion.

The Grand Master at the time, Matthew Festing of England, wanted instead for the Swiss court to complete its process, investigating the origin of the funds and their management. The open proceeding in fact concerned the crimes of money laundering, exploitation of a disabled person, and administrative mismanagement.

After the 2014 elections within the Order, the German faction headed by Boeselager acquired greater power, but Grand Master Festing preserved the majority in the Sovereign Council. Boeselager and company made insistent attempts to arrive at the signing of a transaction with the fiduciary of the trust, something that would have extinguished the criminal action. But the Grand Master always opposed this step.

At the end of 2016, however, after the discovery of the distribution of condoms, contraceptives, and abortifacient pills by auxiliary organizations of the Order under Boeselager’s control, the saga took shape that led to the ouster of Festing as Grand Master, with a decisive contribution by the Holy See.

Festing’s defenestration took place on January 25 of 2017. And twenty days later, on February 15, the transaction was signed with Ariane Slinger, with tremendous publicity hype by the new management of the Order. In effect it was a matter of a very hefty donation, of 2.7 million euro per year for 7 years.

Shortly afterward, however, the story broke of the preceding freeze of the donation by the Swiss court, for an audit of the correctness of its origin. And this cast a shadow over the management of the Order, which to demonstrate the licit provenance of the funds commissioned an investigation by the Promontory Financial Group, a company that had already been called to the rescue by the Vatican to fix up its “bank,” the IOR, Institute for Works of Religion.

But the Promontory report does not appear conclusive in the least.

The report was prepared in less than two months by Louis-Victor Douville de Franssu, son of Jean-Baptiste, president of the IOR, the advisers of which include Boeselager’s brother, Georg.

But there is much more than these curious kinships. In the composition of the report, most of the information, according to Promontory itself, was furnished by Ariane Slinger. And to those who were able to read and analyze it carefully, it appeared full of inaccuracies, if not of falsehoods.

One that stands for all: the funds are said to have come from the great-grandfather of the “donor,” presumably born in 1870-80, resident in France, who, according to the Promontory reconstruction, is said to have deposited the revenue from his business in Switzerland, under the aegis of a Liechtenstein foundation named “Turricula,” shares in which were held by a trust set up in Panama named “Torrevedras S.A.”  But can you imagine, dear Magister, an elderly French gentleman in the 1920’s assembling a financial structure in three different countries using trusts and foundations and shares? Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Promontory maintains that the exact dates of the constitution of Turricula and Torrevedras S.A. have not been ascertained, but in any case it traces them back to the early 1920’s. In reality the first traces of legislation on trusts in Panama, based on common law, are from the 1940’s and the first codified law on them is from 1984. Torrevedras S.A. turns out to be an anonymous company, set up in Panama on November 29 1977 by the law firm of Arias, Fabrega & Fabrega, and whose “director” was Ariane Slinger. This company was liquidated on April 20 2012, after the constitution of the trusts in New Zealand. Which in turn were actually companies set up in the Isle of Man.

The gist is that the licit provenance of the donation is by no means certain, and that once again Grand Master Festing was on the side of reason when he wanted to let the Swiss court investigate.

But let’s get back to “following the money,” which brings us to the current German control of the Order.

Whatever happened to those 2.7 million euro received in 2017 from Ariane Slinger? And in 2018? And afterward? Certainly a substantial part of it ended up in the coffers of two groups that report to the Order, the “Malteser International” and the “Global Fund for Forgotten People,” these too administered by German representatives, again the same ones. And nothing has been revealed about how the money was spent.

In reality, with a complete lack of transparency, a good part of the cash is currently being handed over to associations and projects that end up influencing the configuration of approval - including electoral - in the Order. For example, by setting up small national associations under the control of Malteser International, of 10-15 members - as in Scandinavia, where a German has been imposed in the presidency, with a consequent right to vote in the General Chapter - or by financing the projects of larger associations, in order to obtain their support.

So then, among the changes that the new German management seems to want to impose is the modification of the interpretation that for a thousand years the Order has given to the vow of poverty among its religious of the first class, who currently number around sixty.

These were once the only members of the Order, and they had to support themselves with their own family inheritance. This tradition has been preserved until today, and the professed are not supported by the Order, as in other religious institutes, but grant their work and service of charity by supporting themselves with their own work and their own personal assets, the availability of which is in any case subjected to limitations.

Now, however, the current Grand Master has written to the professed Knights to send in a statement of their assets and revenues and to say how much they need to live. Which seems to foreshadow the support of the professed by the Order and therefore a much stronger influence by the management on the professed themselves.

If this takes place, it will be the last step toward a new structure of the Order that the Germans have been pursuing for a long time, with three relatively independent components:

- the religious component, with little influence, to guarantee the maintenance of the statutes of the religious order and of the sovereignty and extraterritoriality recognized by Italy, the Vatican, and other states;

- the financial component, already extensively dominated by the Germans, who de facto already manage the rich Italian patrimony of the Order, a financial firm in Switzerland, and the UK-incorporated trust The Global Fund for Forgotten People, with a complete absence of administrative transparency;

- the operational component, already in the hands of Malteser International, set up under German law, which operates as much as possible like a secular NGO, without too many religious restrictions, for initiatives in natural disasters and above all in aid for migrants and refugees.

Those in the Order who do not agree with this strategic vision are accused of being divisive and are forced to keep quiet. But they continue to have faith, because it is not inevitable that this pseudoreform will succeed in destroying this age-old institution. In its history, the Order has risen again even after the catastrophe of Napoleonic rule in Malta and the capitulation to which the Grand Master at the time, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, a German, stooped… “Non praevalebunt!”

Cordially,

[Signature]

[ebb tide]

N.B. Henry Sire, the author of the the Dictator Pope was promptly kicked out of the Knights of Malta once his true identity was revealed.

[ebb tide]

Ping

[Red Badger]

They don’t speak Maltese?...............

[Mrs. Don-o]

German Kirchensteuer money is all over South America, too. "The Rhine flows into the Amazon."

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think you may have misunderstood. He is speaking figuratively. The "German" being spoken is German Modernist theology and German Kirchensteuer money, basically corrupting the Knights of Malta with disproportionate financial influence.

[Red Badger]

Germans still want to control all of Europe..................