Bergolio - The Epicenter of Vatican's Quakes Affecting The Order Of Malta

Not only was the village of Montereale the epicenter of Italy's January 18, 2017, earthquakes, following last year's that claimed the lives of "around 300 people [1]," Bergolio is also the epicenter of continuing tremors that are shaking up the Catholic Church, the Holy See and other sovereigns.

This entry follows up on the post dated January 12, 2017, entitled Order Of Malta Deemed A Papal Inquiry Irrelevant. On January 17, 2017, the Catholic Herald  published an article by the Associated Press  entitled Vatican rejects Order of Malta’s criticism of investigation, quoted in full below (with hyperlink included) [2]:

In a statement, the Holy See 'reaffirmed its confidence' in the commission appointed to investigate the order[.]

The Vatican is striking back at the Order of Malta, rejecting attempts to discredit its commission investigating the ousting of a top official of the ancient Catholic lay order.

In a sharply worded statement released on Tuesday, the Holy See said it “reaffirms its confidence” in the commission appointed last month by Pope Francis to report on the “present crisis of the central direction” of the order.

The statement added that the Vatican “counts on the complete cooperation of all in this sensitive stage” — a reference to the order’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation on grounds of its sovereign status.

The order’s leader suspended Albrecht von Boeselager as grand chancellor over a condom distribution scandal involving the order’s charity branch.

The order’s leader Fra’ Matthew Festing sent a letter to members on January 14 in which he said he was only protecting the order’s sovereignty in refusing to cooperate with the Vatican commission.

A January 9, 2017, comment in the Catholic Herald  written by Ed Condon, "a canon lawyer working for tribunals in a number of dioceses," [3] entitled Yes, the Order of Malta is Catholic. That doesn’t legitimise this Vatican inquiry  defends the Knights of Malta's rejection of the pope's inquiry into the Order's internal affairs.  Ed Gordon's entire post (with hyperlinks included) is quoted below [4]:

The dispute between the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Holy See’s Secretariat of State can be quite confusing. So much so that even the Secretary of State himself, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, seems to be having a hard time finding his place in the affair.

To recap: Cardinal Parolin has announced that a commission to investigate the dismissal of the Order’s Grand Chancellor will go ahead. He has said, according to recent leaks, that the Order is a “lay religious Order” which is to be of “service to the faith and to the Holy Father”. Therefore, he is alleged to have reasoned, the Holy See has the authority to intervene in the Order’s internal governance.

It is hard to believe that so seasoned a Vatican diplomat as Cardinal Parolin would make such a basically flawed legal argument. But if the quotations are an accurate representation of his thinking, then there are some serious misconceptions at work here.

The basic line of argument being advanced is that the Order is Catholic, therefore the Pope must be in charge, therefore the Holy See can intervene. Unfortunately, this is about as legally coherent as 2+2=5.

The Order of Malta is, indeed, a lay religious order. However, it is made explicitly clear that the obligations of religious obedience do not travel outside the hierarchy of the Order itself. This is detailed in the section of the Order’s constitution which treats its relationship with the Holy See. It says:

Religious members through their vows, as well as members of the Second Class through the Promise of Obedience, are only subject to their appropriate Superiors in the Order.
(Constitution of the Order, art. 4 §2; my emphasis)

Although the Order is Catholic, its constitution clearly separates it from the oversight of any Vatican department.

But, you might object, doesn’t the Pope have authority over any Catholic organisation? Well, yes – but there is only one way in which he can exercise that authority. In order to compromise the Order’s sovereignty, the Pope must first expressly abrogate the Order’s rights and laws (Constitution, art. 4 §3). Pope Francis has not done so. Until such time, the religious obedience of the Grand Master, and other professed knights or the Order, is commanded by the Pope “in accordance with the Constitution and the Code” (Code of the Order, art. 62), that is, fully respecting the Order’s independence and sovereignty regarding its governance.

For the Vatican commission to be legitimate, the Pope would need to sign a formal, legal act, officially and expressly abrogating the Order’s sovereignty and authorising the investigative commission to act. This formal act would need to be sent to the Order. If the Pope wanted Cardinal Parolin, or any other curial official, to have the power to authoritatively communicate with the Grand Master on his behalf, this too would need to be explicitly and legally set out by the Pope directly to the Grand Master, in a way which accounted for the necessary abrogation of sovereignty.

Those who insist on Cardinal Parolin’s right to intervene have confused the person of the Pope with the governing apparatus of the Holy See. “The Pope” does not mean every official in the Vatican. Yes, Cardinal Parolin’s letter asserts the alleged opinion of the Holy Father on the situation. But this is no more an official, formal, legal mandate than the Pope’s breakfast order is an infallible teaching.

Of course, Cardinal Parolin cannot really believe that the Order of Malta is under the oversight of the Holy See like any other religious order. If this were a serious legal argument, then the whole matter would have been referred to the Holy See’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, not the Secretary of State.

All of this is without considering international law. Here the Secretariat of State’s rationale for intervening gets even more tenuous. The Order is a sovereign entity under international law. It is recognised as such by more than one hundred countries, it issues its own passports and stamps, it has permanent observer status at the UN. Even if the Holy Father were to expressly abrogate the Order’s constitution (an act that would have to come from him personally, not through a Vatican official), it is not at all clear what the consequences would be internationally and diplomatically for both institutions.

By undermining the sovereignty of another entity, the Secretariat of State’s intervention could have serious diplomatic repercussions for the Holy See itself. It also remains unclear how the commission could usefully make any headway, given that the Order rejects it as a manifest violation of the Order’s sovereignty, both under its own constitution and international law.

While the Pope is the authority which first granted the Order sovereign status, its independent diplomatic status and relationships mean it does not rely on the Pope for international legitimacy. How would the diplomatic world react if the Queen, under insistent advice from Boris Johnson [(United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [5])], issued a decree revoking Canada’s sovereignty? The parallel is not exact, but it is not far off either.

Does Bergolio ever think about the consequences of his actions?  He does not have to.  His preordained ascension to the papacy is to reduce it to rubble.


[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/18/italy-hit-four-powerful-earthquakes-four-hours-bringing-terror/
[2] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/vatican-rejects-order-of-maltas-criticism-of-investigation/
[3] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/01/09/yes-the-order-of-malta-is-catholic-that-doesnt-legitimise-this-vatican-inquiry/
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/people/boris-johnson