VATICAN CITY
Fox News
Published December 24, 2016 Associated Press
VATICAN CITY – The Order of Malta, the ancient Roman Catholic aristocratic lay order, has told Pope Francis that his decision to launch an investigation into the ouster of a top official over an old condom scandal is “unacceptable.”
In an extraordinary rebuke of the pontiff, the group said late Friday that the replacement of its grand chancellor was an “act of internal governmental administration of the Sovereign Order of Malta and consequently falls solely within its competence.”
Francis on Thursday appointed a five-member commission to investigate the Dec. 8 ouster of Albrecht von Boeselager amid evidence that Francis’ own envoy to the group, conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, helped engineer it without his blessing.
One charge used against von Boeselager concerned a program that the order’s Malteser International aid group had participated in several years ago with other aid groups to help sex slaves in Myanmar, including giving them condoms to protect them from HIV infection.
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