Pope Francis meets with the Order of Malta’s Fra’ Marco Luzzago on June 25, 2021. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Mar 31, 2022 / 04:42 am (CNA).
Pope Francis received two drafts of a new constitution for the Order of Malta at an audience with members of the 1,000-year-old institution on March 19. He reserved the right to read them calmly and then make his final decisions.
To understand what’s at stake, it’s essential to know how the order is structured. The organization’s members belong to three classes.
The First Class consists of the Knights of Justice, or professed knights, and Professed Conventual Chaplains, who take the religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They are defined as religious but not required to live in a community.
The Second Class is composed of Knights and Dames in Obedience, who promise to strive for Christian perfection in the spirit of the order.
The Third Class comprises lay members who neither take vows nor make promises but are committed to living a fully Catholic life according to the order’s principles.
Only First Class knights who descend from a family of four quarters of nobility are eligible to be elected as the Grand Master, the order’s religious superior and sovereign. This provision means that fewer than 40 people in the order can be considered for the position.
The Grand Master oversees the order with the help of a body called the Sovereign Council, whose members are elected for five-year terms by the order’s General Chapter.
Members of the Sovereign Council include the influential figure of the Grand Chancellor, who oversees the order’s 133 diplomatic missions, and the Grand Hospitaller, responsible for the order’s extensive humanitarian initiatives.
The order has three different types of national institutions spread around the world: six grand priories, six sub-priories, and 48 local associations.
The participants in the meeting with the pope on March 19 represented two sides in a years-long debate over reforms to the order’s constitution.
Some of those present were members of the group entrusted with drafting the new constitution, led by the papal delegate Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi. Also attending were representatives of the professed knights, the government of the order, the procurators of the priories, and the presidents of the associations, as well as the order’s current leader, Fra’ Marco Luzzago, who is known as the Lieutenant of the Grand Master.
The gathering enabled Pope Francis to hear the advocates of two contrasting visions for the order. First, that of the working group led by Tomasi, which stressed the need for the Order of Malta to be led above all by the professed. And second, that of the group set up by the Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeslager and entrusted to the leadership of Marwan Sehanaoui, president of the order’s Lebanese association, which called for a more collegial style of government.
The private papal audience lasted for two and a half hours instead of the expected hour and a half. According to participants who spoke with CNA, the pope said that he wanted to retain everything that makes the Order of Malta such an effective provider of humanitarian aid and he would review material provided by both sides before making a decision.
The two colliding visions have shaped the debate ever since Pope Francis launched the reform process in 2017 after he accepted the resignation of Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing in the middle of an internal governance crisis.
The debate over the new constitution became even more problematic following the death of Festing’s successor, Giacomo dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguineto, in 2020.
Luzzago was then chosen to lead the order, not as Grand Master but as Lieutenant of the Grand Master, who typically serves a one-year term. But this term was extended by the pope himself, to an unlimited extent, amid the push to conclude the constitutional reform.
Pope Francis believes that the reform must, first of all, strengthen the Order of Malta as a religious institution and, secondly, reinforce its service to the poor. The draft presented by Tomasi’s working group should be read in this light.
The Tomasi-led group is composed of the canon law expert Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, S.J., Msgr. Brian Ferme, the secretary of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, and Maurizio Tagliaferri, Federico Marti, and Gualtiero Ventura.
Ghirlanda is understood to have spent about an hour explaining his position that the professed should lead the organization because it is at heart a lay religious order.
In practice, Ghirlanda derives authority from religious consecration. This, however, is only valid if the Order of Malta is considered primarily as a spiritual body. The situation is different if its governing bodies are considered “governing bodies” in the strict sense.
Ghirlanda was among the speakers at a recent press conference after the launch of Praedicate evangelium, the new Vatican constitution reforming the Roman Curia. At the press conference, he commented on the change allowing any baptized person, not only a bishop, to lead certain Vatican dicasteries. He said that this was possible because it was not ordination but receiving a canonical mission that gave dicastery heads their authority.
Ghirlanda said that this decision resolved the question posed by Canon 129 of the Code of Canon Law, according to which authority derives from priestly ordination. Ghirlanda noted that the decision had resulted from extensive debate.
But if the possibility for the laity to participate in government applies to the Roman Curia, why doesn’t it apply to the government of a body such as the Sovereign Order of Malta?
This is a much-debated topic that is at the heart of the reform proposals. Although the order’s sovereignty derives from a concession from the Holy See, it is constituted as a state without territory. With this international personality, it maintains diplomatic relations with other states and it is its sovereignty that allows it to continue working with the poor.
Many in the Order of Malta have stressed that a reform highlighting only the religious character, mainly submission to the Holy See, would dilute its sovereignty forever.
The importance of the order’s sovereignty was also raised by Luzzago in a speech to the diplomatic corps accredited to the order on Jan. 11 (although the text of the address can no longer be found on the order’s website.)
The pope’s affirmation that he wants to keep everything that allows the order to continue its work for the poor stems from this debate.
The vision of the group led by Sehnaoui, according to a source inside the order, is markedly different. It proposes that the General Chapter, the body bringing together representatives of all classes, would have 15 representatives of the professed knights. The associations would be represented not by assessing the number of works carried out but rather based on the budget allocated to these works. If the budget was less than $20 million, an association would be entitled to one delegate. If it exceeded $20 million, there would be a right to another representative, up to a total of four.
In this way, associations would see some of their concerns represented. Marc Odendall, a member of the first commission established by the pope to clarify the order’s internal problems in 2016, summed up this reasoning when he told CNA that “$2 billion turnovers, 45,000 employees, 100,000 volunteers in the world cannot be managed by 19 professed who are under 70 and have no professional qualifications.”
Sehnaoui’s draft reflects this concern, trying to find a balance between the need to maintain the order’s religious character and having a government more independent from the Holy See that also considers the professional work of many associations.
It remains to be seen which of the two world views will prevail. Now, everything is firmly in the pope’s hands. At the same time, the role of the papal delegate, Cardinal Tomasi, seems to be increasingly marginal.
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Of course a headliner announcement, made in the likeness of a papal pronouncement. Card Hollerich’s premise that a happy medium will be found to appease those with their knives out is, rather than amelioration, the mistake that permanent truth, intrinsic evil, the revealed nature of the good acts necessary for salvation can be essentially adjusted.
We may, out of good will, empathize with Card Grech’s rejoicing over the joy in the eyes perceived in Synod participants. Sentiment, though a necessary feature of our humanness, does not determine good or evil, nor in itself the rationale. That belongs to the apprehensive capacity of intellect. While there is an attractiveness to an ordained women’s diaconate – for one I would not be blown away should it occur, whereas approval of adult homosexual relations, Hollerich’s pet proposal is intrinsic evil in any form of behavior – it does not find evidence in Christ’s institution of the laying of hands by Him, and transfer to the Apostles. After Vat II Catholic professors argued the ludicrousness of the ‘pipeline’ doctrine, the unbroken lineage of laying of hands. Although they offered zero argument for the validity of simply wishing to be an ordained minister of the Gospels. The truth is, revealed truth cannot be mitigated to make us all feel jolly. The truth of Christ requires effort, sacrifice, obedience, and the sine qua non of humility.
We read: “Grech said one bishop told him he saw ‘ice melt’ in people during the gathering.”
Not to throw cold water on the festivities and even the possibilities, but simply to notice that as a band continued to play, ice fragments also melted for a short while on the deck of the “unsinkable” Titanic.
RE: the vote on women deacons. I think so many voted FOR reviewing the issue in the future because an overwhelming number of lefties, lay and cleric, were invited to the synod by Pope Francis. He was packing the vote. We don’t need women deacons- we need more men to be encouraged to serve as deacons. Women do ENOUGH already. Move over and make room for the men (fathers).
Three men in our diocese applied to be permanent deacons. All three were rejected. Why? Well I don’t know about two of the men, because I have never met them (different parish, far away), but I am aquatinted with one of them. He leans toward “traditional”.
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Something tells me that has something to do with it.
Obviously, all are no aware that apostate Bishops and Cardinals are completely public in their open rejection of the commands of Jesus and The Holy Spirit’s revelation / commands against fornication and sodomy.
That apostasy is a given.
On the prospect of ordaining women as deacons, this is the more subtle form of manipulation. One convert Jennifer Ferrara, noted in her conversion story (in the book “There We Stood, Here We Stand”), that when she, as an orthodox-believing Lutheran pastor, read in 1996 that the ELCA had decided to cover the cost of all abortions in its health care plan for Church employees, she was stunned, in reading this response by a fellow-orthodox Lutheran pastor: “Resl Churches Don’t Kill Babies.”
Ferrara noted that though she was orthodox, that is, believed in the commands against fornication, sodomy and abortion, she was an oddity among ordained women in the ELCA, who were in the vast majority what she called “liberals,” particularly regarding sexual morality.
Within 2 years of accepting abortion, the ELCA entered into an “altar and pulpit fellowship” with the United Church of Christ, “which ordained practicing homosexuals.”
So, the result on display is that the women’s ordination thing is just a stalking horse for the sanctification of fornication, sodomy and abortion.
Chris, I should add to your last sentence: “abortion.”…all of which will tend to future sanctioning of ‘lawful’ transhuman promulgating and propagating, pedophilia, polyamory, trafficking and slavery and euthanasia of ‘recalcitrant’ persons or their offspring, etc. Venial sins tend to mortal when left unchecked.
-Sponsored and approved by the powerful lacking without soul, heart, or head.
The vote by this group proves nothing except how many of them lack a spine. That would be the majority. Too afraid to buck the very clear sentiments of the current Pope. Too afraid to be castigated by the press as being anti- woman and anti-woke. So, if these women are ordained deacons, where do they go from there? That’s assuming there is a “there” left, after disaffected Catholics take their wallets and leave over such a travesty. Or is this just a slippery slope down the hill to ordained women priests?? My opinion of this synod remains unchanged. Disgusting and unneeded.
There will be no change in doctrine or organization. Just cosmetic change whereby we are friendlier to gays and women. So what?
Francis is a pastor, not a cop. No real change, but less confrontation.
“Just cosmetic change whereby we are friendlier to gays and women.”
Ah, that explains the endless documents, constant meetings, month-long meeting in Rome (with another in a year). Makes perfect sense.
“Francis is a pastor, not a cop.”
Especially if you prefer traditional liturgy, think doctrine is important, uphold moral teachings, and think the constant chatter and bloviating about sexual devianc—er, diversity, women priests, women deacons, etc., is both confusing and counter-productive to authentic witness.
Less sarcastically: anyone paying attention to the Rupnik situation (as well as a host of others over the past decade) knows that Francis’s handling of it has been an abomination and is about as anti-pastoral as can be.
Yes, Rupnik was mishandled. Remember Marcial Maciel and so many others that were also mishandled by other Popes.
You seem to worry so much about Synods doing damage, but the clerical sexual abuse of minors scandals have done much more damage. A lot of people have just walked away in disgust. As that great American philosopher Yogi Berra said: “If people don’t come to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them.” Substitute Church for ballpark and I think it covers the situation.
“the clerical sexual abuse of minors” – translated = homosexual lifestyle of clergy.
I was told in a follow up comment to my recent lament that I was being “nonsensical” to hold the view I will now repeat whether it was well received or not the way I awkwardly expressed it when I was half asleep. (CWR might consider an edit option) When our Church orchestrates a performance for the whole world to take notice and advertise to the whole world that this is what the Holy Spirit is endorsing because our Pope says it is, and we blasphemously presume to dictate our ruminations to the Holy Spirit, yet we claim to have a Deposit of Faith that has been formed historically by a blood, sweat, and tears struggle of saints responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and today we put on a buffoonish display before the world of committees “rethinking” that maybe God got it tragically wrong in the truth He endowed in the past to His Church and His people to give witness to the world, then it does not matter that no doctrines have been changed.
The integrity of God’s people giving witness, including our mission to witness such things like the sacredness of unborn life, now mystically divorced from sexuality at the behest of the morally bankrupt, has been made a laughingstock to the entire world. And consequences of mass murderous proportions are no laughing matter.
A renewed commentary well worth posting Edward.
IMO, Cdl. Hollerich has had his fifteen minutes of fame.
His Eminence Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich is blessed with a prophetic voice. Evangelization and conversion are ongoing and never ending opportunities. The Synod on Synodality has been an exercise in examination of conscience and discernment. Good things are bound to come from those who participated in the month long retreat and their supporters who have been praying ceaselessly for the success of the Synod. Tidings of comfort and joy are awaiting pilgrims here, there, and everywhere.
Dr. Coelho, that’s really effective satire. I couldn’t stop laughing. Keep it coming.
His Eminence Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich a “prophetic voice”? If pigs could fly…
The “success of the Synod” can come either through the synod, OR around it. One embedded agenda item about the “fly” (and endorsed by Hollerich) has been to “walk together” past the sexual abuse scandal to now abuse the Holy Spirit.
Well, bypassing or moving around this and other embedded agendas, things might be looking up, after all. Here’s a link to a critique by Cardinal Muller of the DRAFT synodal report, together with a later link covering changes in the FINAL report which, of course, is not final…
https://www.ncregister.com/interview/cardinal-mueller-says-synod-on-synodality-is-being-used-by-some-to-prepare-the-church-to-accept-false-teaching
https://www.ncregister.com/news/synod-on-synodality-what-changed