ROME
Crux
John L. Allen Jr. January 13, 2017
EDITOR
ROME – Just to be clear from the beginning, I have no insider information regarding the news now making the rounds about the Knights of Malta, either in terms of the factors that led to the ouster of Albrecht von Boeselager, the group’s chancellor, or Pope Francis’s decision to create a committee to look into the situation.
What I can say at a distance, however, is that for anyone familiar with the Vatican over a stretch of time, there are at least a couple of truly juicy ironies at work.
As has been widely reported, Boeselager was suspended Dec. 8 after refusing an order to resign over revelations that the order’s charity branch distributed thousands of condoms in Myanmar on his watch. Boeselager reportedly insisted that he didn’t know about the program, and stopped it when he learned of it.
Boeselager also said that the top Knight, Fra Matthew Festing, in the presence of the order’s patron, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, told him Pope Francis wanted him removed, although the Vatican has denied the pope was involved.
On Dec. 22, the Vatican announced Pope Francis had created a committee to examine the situation. The five members are Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, former permanent observer of the Holy See to the U.N. in Geneva; Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a noted canonist and former rector of the Gregorian University; and laypeople Jacques de Liedekerke, Marc Odendall, and Marwan Sehnaoui.
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