After the Grand Master a second head is about to fall: that of Cardinal Burke
By Sandro Magister
Beheaded by the pope of his Grand Master, English Fra 'Matthew Festing, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta has not only ratified, Saturday, January 28, his forced resignation, but took back the time machine to the fateful December 6, 2016, resettling in the role of Chancellor precisely the one that the day had been removed from there and suspended from the Order, the German Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager.
To turn the tide in the Order, to push him to this act of total submission to the will of Pope Francis, were three acts performed in rapid succession by the same Pope: the convening January 24 the Grand Master and the Order imparted to him to resign; a letter the day after the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin with the explanation of the will of the pope; and finally two letters of January 27 the pope himself, with a further specification of the role that will have the "papal delegate" of which it was announced the arrival "for the spiritual renewal of the Order."
It is this last element of major innovations that we find in the press releasespread by the Order in the Saturday night. As Seventh Heaven had correctly informed, Pope Francis has effectively granted the Order the right to proceed according to its constitutions regarding the interim regency - now assumed by the Grand Commander of the Order, Fra 'Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein - and the appointment of new Grand Master. The "pontifical delegate," then, does not replace nor will overlap the legitimate government of the Order, as many had hoped or feared. But rather it will be joined with the driving task "spiritual." A task that is very similar to what already statutorily bound to the patron Cardinal.
Decapitation inflicted by Pope Francis to the Order of Malta is therefore double. Because to fall is not only the head of the Grand Master Festing, but also, in fact, that of the patron Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. Ie those that led to the removal of Boeselager confident with what to put into practice the mandate initially entrusted to them by the Pope, in a letter of 1 December to Burke, "to promote the spiritual interests of the Order and remove any affiliation with groups and practices contrary to the moral law. "
That removal, however, set in motion a battle unprecedented in the Order of Malta and between the Order and the Holy See, whose record was readable in bellicose press releases issued by the Order as until a few days ago.
Today those disclosed no trace. They have all been removed from the official web site of the Order.
But it is hard to believe that is enough to reset the havoc the act of submission to the Pope made by the new regency Order Saturday, January 28.
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The most detailed and documented reconstruction of the story is in these services by Edward Pentin for the National Catholic Register:
January 7, 2017
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