Posted on 01/25/2017 10:48:57 AM PST by BlessedBeGod
Edited on 01/25/2017 11:12:24 AM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
Full Title: The Vatican Has Destroyed the Order of Malta’s Sovereignty. What if Italy Does the Same to the Vatican?
The curia remains a place where cliques have more authority than the law. It doesn't bode well.
The most remarkable thing about the Order of Malta controversy is not that the Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, has resigned. That is extraordinary enough, especially given that it was apparently on the invitation of Pope Francis. No, the most astonishing feature of the story is today’s announcement that the Pope will install an Apostolic Delegate to run the Order. In effect, this abolishes the Order as a sovereign entity. Under international law, what we are seeing is effectively the annexation of one country by another.
How did it come to this? Somehow, the small clique who rallied around the former Grand Chancellor, Albrecht Boeselager, have managed to turn a matter of the Order’s own internal governance into a full-blown diplomatic crisis between the two oldest and most prominent sovereign entities in the western world.
The clique never had much of a case. As I have written before, there is no question that, legally speaking, the commission set up on the recommendation of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State to investigate his sacking of Boeselager was and remains totally illegitimate.
It is clear that Boeselager was dismissed, following his refusal to resign, according to the approved legal process of the Order. It has been alleged that Fra’ Festing “defied” Pope Francis by dismissing Boeselager. But any opinion the Pope may have expressed before the event would have been in the much-rumoured letter on the matter from the Pope directly to Cardinal Burke, the Holy See’s envoy to the Order. This letter has not even been formally confirmed as existing, let alone leaked. Its purported contents remain the great unanswered question at the heart of this whole affair.
As far as one can tell from the various reports, the Pope actually gave no indication that he was opposed to the firing of Boeselager. In fact, the Holy Father seems to have been deeply concerned about the gravity of the allegations against Boeselager and even at the possibility of masonic infiltration of the Order’s membership and activities. The fact that the actual text of this letter has remained totally confidential speaks volumes about the discretion and respect for the Holy Father of both the Cardinal Patron and the Grand Master, even as they have been publicly accused of the opposite.
Fra’ Festing’s humility and courtesy are typical of the man. He has served the Order and the Pope well, with total devotion and respect for the obligations of the law and his position. And now, he has been forced from his position for doing his duty. Yet Boeselager – who refused to obey a direct order from his sovereign – and his allies have triumphed.
These allies have carried out a sordid campaign of leaked letters from Cardinal Parolin’s department, which served the sad and obvious end of framing a public narrative in which Fra’ Festing supposedly “defied” the explicit wishes of the Pope. In fact, even according to the confused and changeable timeline constructed by his friends, it was clear that Boeselager was dismissed well before Cardinal Parolin’s apparent (and still illegitimate) intervention.
The sad and severe consequences of this chain of events are considerable. The international legitimacy of the Order of Malta is now in ruins, its constitutional integrity and diplomatic standing now seem beyond repair.
Today’s announcement of an Apostolic Delegate to be appointed by the Pope represents, essentially, the total abrogation of the Order’s sovereignty. Yet the consequences for the Holy See itself may, in the longer term, be equally or even more severe. The disregard for the mutually sovereign relationship between the Holy See and the Order sets a precedent in international law, which will now lurk under the Secretariat of State’s dealings with other governments like an unexploded bomb.
If the Holy See can so brazenly insert itself into the internal governance of another sovereign entity whose legitimacy stems from a mutual agreement under international law, it now has no legal defence should another sovereign body, say the government of the Italian Republic, choose to view the independence of the Holy See as a similarly anachronistic formality. Cardinal Parolin should prepare to see today’s actions cited as legitimate precedent when the IOR, commonly called the Vatican Bank, finds its sovereign independence under renewed pressure from other countries or international bodies. Pope Benedict XVI said that “a society without laws is a society without rights”; the naked disregard for the law shown in recent weeks has sown a bitter harvest for the Holy See’s diplomatic corps to reap in the future.
For those less concerned with the diplomatic and legal aspects of this situation, there is one over-riding truth which has emerged from all this. It is now clear that for all the great hopes of curial reform which accompanied the election of Pope Francis, the Vatican remains a place where cliques and personal networks have more authority than the law, and where leaking and smearing remain part of the everyday business of governance.
The Pope himself is, as he has often stated, not a lawyer, nor is the law something he is known to have much interest in. Those in his curia who have prompted him to this action have deliberately served him, the office of the papacy, the international sovereignty of the Holy See, and of course the men and women of the Order of Malta, incredibly badly. I suspect it is now just a matter of when, not if, they come to regret it.
The time is drawing near when Catholics will have to decide between following their faith or the fake Pope.
Most of us Catholics have been instructed to believe in our Religion and not a ‘human’ pretending to be something he is not...
Darn.
And I was looking forward to looking it up. LOL
bump
bkmk
This jerk just nuked the 1929 Lateran Treaty that guarantees the Holy See’s independence as a civil state without even knowing it. Way to go, Francis. You just invited the EU or UN to drag you before one of its kangaroo courts.
Given the man’s behavior, how can you be certain that he was unaware of the potential consequence?
That’s an easy choice to make, and it’s easy to carry out. A good Catholic simply practices the Faith, and waits for Bergoglio to die. Nothing complicated.
Yeah, but it’s tough luck to the Knights of Malta. He just did what the Muslims couldn’t.
Yes. Instead, believe in the Man who proved who He said He is.
And in response to the article...
Good old Frank the Hippie Pope. Sigh. This is either going to spark a new Reformation or turn the RCC into just another UN organization. Maybe both.
And while part of me thinks it would be delicious to rub it in the faces of certain arrogant Catholics that they’re in exactly the spot Luther was way back when, it’s hard to giggle when all the resources of the Vatican are in the hands of a bunch of megalomaniacs with dreams of world domination.
I know many Catholics. And those who have spoken of Francis have without fail done so with disgust and contempt.
The problem is thus: the same people who elected Frank are still in power. The next guy will probably be the same or worse.
And you know how they think. You won’t be allowed to practice your faith. You will have to bow to them or else.
Well done Pope Francis!
Recall that all of this was provoked by a Catholic order disciplining a leader, on whose watch, condoms had been distributed in clear violation of Catholic teaching. The condom issue has long been forgotten but it is still at the heart of this matter.
So we have a Pope taking over an order and essentially supporting the regime which presided over condom giveaways.
What's wrong with this picture?
Due to a recent the last few days of a family tragedy, I have had an opportunity to have a long sit down, open, frank talk with my Father, setting things up, dealing with everything, and the one thing that came out of all of this from my Father was ‘believe in your faith, don't believe in a ‘human’ for he errs as all other ‘humans’ that's why we are here, we are given a choice and we will answer for those mistakes if they are mistakes or whatever when we met The Lord after we pass from here...
I haven't always agreed with ‘The Religion’ but I have always had a very strong Faith of God and know that He will guide me through the maze of life if I ask Him for His Love...
He has and He will get me through this tragedy with our family...
Twitter is reporting that he already has been reinstated, but I can't find any official confirmation.
God bless you. May He strengthen you and comfort you.
You are also fortunate to have an earthly father who is loving and wise.
To be a sovereign nation you need to control some land, and be internationally recognized. The Republic of Malta is a sovereign nation, located on the island of Malta. They were admitted to the UN in 1964.
Vatican City claims to be "the smallest sovereign nation in the world" and is located in the middle of Rome. Italy acknowledges the sovereignty of the Vatican City, but it's not a member state in the UN.
So the Order of Malta is like The Rotary Club for some Catholics, right. No one ever speaks of the "sovereignty of the Rotary Club".
This reminds me of when some denominations fracture. There is always a big fight over who gets the assets, usually church buildings. It often depends on how things are structured. My daughters Presbyterian Church left the Presbyterian USA denomination (over their relentless liberal drift), and they took the church with them.
The Catholic Church has much stronger governance hierarchy, and if any Catholic parish did wish to break away it is unlikely that they would get to keep their church buildings.
However many Catholic Universities seem to have thrown off any formal oversite by the the Catholic Church.
Isn't this really what is being discussed here? The Wikipeida describes the Order as: "is a Roman Catholic lay religious order" If you claim to be a Roman Catholic anything you are not "Sovereign" of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.
In summary: It may be an unusual power struggle between an order that is normally very well connected and the new Pope, but there is no issue of secular law at stake, and the continual references comparing this religious order to an internationally recognized sovereign state are needlessly confusing and inaccurate.
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