Posted on 08/30/2022 6:59:00 PM PDT by marshmallow
As Pope Francis prepares to announce his decision on the future of the Order of Malta, senior knights have warned that a slate of Vatican-imposed changes to its leadership have left the order’s sovereignty in shreds, and drawn the authority of the order’s new leader - Lieutenant Grand Master John Dunlap - into question.
Francis is expected to direct the knights soon to convene a chapter meeting, at which they will be expected to ratify a draft constitution approved by the pope before the summit. Ahead of the impending chapter, the pope has already appointed an interim leader for the Order of Malta, and his cardinal delegate reshuffled the heads of the group’’s priories around the world.
But senior members of the order have been quietly, but frantically, pushing back — begging the pope to reconsider proposals for their future governance, and warning that Vatican “arbitrary interference” in their affairs has divided their members, and pushed beyond limits the balance between the order’s sovereign legal status and its religious identity.
Some leaders warned the pope this month that plans under papal consideration might cause even “a break-up of the Order of Malta” itself.
The Order of Malta is a Catholic religious order dating back more than 900 years, it also has a unique status in international law, with the ability to maintain full diplomatic relations with nations, and a seat as a permanent observer at the United Nations. The order operates humanitarian relief efforts around the world.
The group has been in a protracted process of constitutional reform since 2017. After years of gridlock, last October Pope Francis gave his personal delegate to the order, Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, sweeping powers to change the knights’ religious life and internal governance, despite concerns that this could violate the order’s sovereign status.......
(Excerpt) Read more at pillarcatholic.com ...
Dictator Pope Strikes Again
The Knights need to reject Papal authority and declare themselves an independent and sovereign organization of Catholic laypeople.
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