Knights of Malta elect Englishman as new grand master
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- In a secret and swift election, the Knights of Malta elected an Englishman as their 79th grand master.
Matthew Festing, who had been the Knights' grand prior of England, was chosen March 11 to replace Andrew W.N. Bertie, who died in February.
Festing, 59, will head the world's oldest chivalric order, founded in the 11th century. He is only the second Englishman to hold the post of grand master; Bertie was the first.
Known officially as the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, the organization was established to care for pilgrims during the Crusades. It lives on today as a lay Catholic religious order and a worldwide humanitarian network.
The order is also a sovereign state, holding observer status at the United Nations and maintaining diplomatic relations with 100 countries.
Festing, an expert in art and history, joined the Knights in 1977 and in 1991 became a "professed" knight, taking religious vows. He is a descendent of Blessed Adrian Fortescue, a Knight of Malta who was martyred in the 16th century.
As head of the English priory, Festing organized humanitarian assistance missions to Lebanon and Kosovo and led a delegation on the order's annual pilgrimage with the sick to Lourdes.
In a statement issued after his election, the new grand master said he wanted to continue the work of his predecessor, who was credited with expanding the order's humanitarian services and its diplomatic connections.
Pope Benedict XVI was informed of Festing's election before it was announced to the world.
The election of a grand master is a major event in Rome. Fifty electors, representing the 12,500 male and female members of the order, filed into the Knights' villa on Rome's Aventine Hill, wearing their distinctive red robes decorated with the Maltese cross.
The election, which began with a Mass, had similarities to a papal conclave. The grand master had to be chosen from among the order's approximately 50 professed Knights.
The voting was done by a secret ballot, after nonvoters were asked to leave. No politicking was allowed, and the new grand master had to receive a "majority plus one" of the total votes -- at least 27 out of 50.
At a press conference a few days before the election, leading Knights said the order is often wrongly depicted as an elite, wealthy secret society.
"In many ways, we are misunderstood," said Winfried Henckel von Donnersmark, a member of the order's sovereign council. In part, that's because of the unusual nature of the organization, he said.
The Knights are a religious order, yet the vast majority of members are lay, he pointed out. It is a Catholic organization, but its humanitarian operations are open to people of all faiths. And while it does have some property and patrimony, it has to continually raise funds to support its annual $1 billion in charity works around the world, he said.
Membership in the order is by invitation. Knights and Dames are practicing Catholics and devote part of their time to doing works of mercy.
The professed members are all male, but women form an increasingly important part of the order, officials said.
According to Albrecht von Boeselager, one of the order's chief officials, the Knights have about 80,000 local volunteers working in 120 countries throughout the world. The organization is welcomed by so many governments -- even by the military regime in Myanmar, for example -- because it adheres to strict neutrality on political issues, he said.
"We don't consider ourselves a human rights organization. If making accusations on human rights issues would prevent us from assisting the needy, we would prefer to be silent," von Boeselager said.
In the Middle East and Asia, however, the Knights' neutrality has recently been called into question by extremist propaganda, he said.
"We have been accused of being part of a 'new crusade,' and even of having mercenaries fighting in Iraq. That is totally untrue, and it endangers our personnel in Muslim countries," he said.
Noreen Falcone, president of the Knights' U.S. federal association, said the order's organizational structure gives it the ability to move quickly into disaster areas. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, for example, the order went to work immediately.
"We're still there, building homes and helping to give people back their self-respect," she said.
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Source: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801371.htm
In an unprecedented move an Englishman has been elected for the second time running as Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, the Roman Catholic order which traces its origins to the Crusades nearly a thousand years ago.
Fra Matthew Festing OBE, 58, an art expert and former army officer who leads the order in Britain as Grand Prior and is regarded as a forward looking reformer, was chosen today. The secret ballot took place today at a papal-style conclave in the Knights' secluded headquarters on the Aventine Hill in Rome.
The Knight's inner council, dressed in black robes embroidered with a white eight-pointed cross elected the new leader of the order of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, as the Knights are also known. The 79th Grand Master, with the title "His Most Eminent Highness", takes over an organisation which is noted for its humanitarian work in conflict zones.
The order is also fighting a campaign to dispel the "myth" that it is rich, powerful and secretive. The election took only a few hours, seen as a sign of unanimity over reported plans to make the order more "open and transparent" and better known globally for its charitable and medical relief operations in 120 countries.
Grand Masters, like Popes, are elected for life. The move was announced after it had been approved by Pope Benedict XVI. It comes a month after the death of Fra' Andrew Bertie, a former schoolmaster and descendant of the Stuart dynasty who was the first Englishman to lead the order and served as its Grand Master for nearly 20 years.
Under his leadership the order - which has the status of sovereign state, with its own passports and stamps - expanded its diplomatic relations from 49 to 100 countries. The order has 12,500 full members, of whom only 50 are "professed knights" who take monk-like vows of poverty, obedience and chastity.
The order said that the new Grand Master "affirms his resolve to continue the great work carried out by his predecessor". It added: "Fra' Matthew comes with a wide range of experience in Order affairs. He has been the Grand Prior of England since the Priory's re-establishment in 1993, restored after an abeyance of 450 years. In this capacity, he has led missions of humanitarian aid to Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia after the recent disturbances in those countries, and with a large delegation from Britain he attends the Order's annual pilgrimage to Lourdes with handicapped pilgrims."
He was educated at Ampleforth and St John's College Cambridge, where he read history. As a child he lived in Egypt and Singapore, where his father, Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, was posted. He is also descended from Sir Adrian Fortescue, a Knight of Malta martyred in 1539.
Frà Matthew served in the Grenadier Guards and holds the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He was appointed OBE by the Queen and served as Deputy Lieutenant in Northumberland. He joined the order in 1977, taking solemn religious vows in 1991.
A spokeswoman for the order said he was noted for his "very British sense of humour" as well as his passion for the decorative arts and encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the Order.
Fra Matthew has promoted the teaching of Christianity in schools, observing that "We live during a strange period in history when children are taught "Comparative Religion" and leave school believing it does not matter what religion you profess .....No wonder many young people are astonished that anyone could possibly have been prepared to suffer and die for the faith".
At one time the order, which is predominantly male, was drawn from European aristocratic families. This has led conspiracy theorists to paint it as a rich and powerful cabal given to arcane rituals.
However Albrecht von Boeselager, the Grand Hospitaller in charge of the order's humanitarian arm, said this was "completely untrue". Charges that the order was conducting a secret "New Crusade" in Muslim countries and had sent mercenaries to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan were also "absolutely without foundation".
He added: "This kind of talk endangers our volunteers in the Muslim world. In Bethlehem we have a maternity hospital which delivers 3000 babies year, 80% of them Musulim. We are Catholic but neutral".
Winfried Henckel von Donnersmarck, a member of the order's Sovereign Council, said the order had 80,000 volunteers and spent £500 million a year helping the world's poor. "The only mystery is one of history. Any organisation is going to have mysteries if it has a thousand years of history behind it " he said.
He said women played a growing role, with Noreen Falcone recently becoming the first woman head of the order's national association in the US.
On its website the order's British chapter notes that there were English knights from the time of the First Crusade, with two priories established in the twelfth century , one for England, Wales and Scotland, and another for Ireland. The Grand Priory of England "received a great accession of wealth and property when the Templars were suppressed in 1312."
The order was disolved by Henry VIII in 1540, when several prominent Knights of Malta were executed. The Grand Priory's ecclesiastical seat is the Church of St. John of Jerusalem in St. John's Wood in London. It is separate from the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem in the British Realm, founded in 1888, but the two bodies signed a co-operation agreement in 1963.
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